No Turning Back
by Shade
Summary: What if everything you ever believed about Dr. Sukebe and the Great Pokegirl War was wrong? A Pokewoman Alt-universe.
1. Prologue: 20 pieces of silver

**No Turning Back  
A Pokewomen Universe Story  
by Shade**

Porn with Plot Warning.

Copyrighted character use warning.

Ignoring what a lot of other people wrote warning.

Warning about warning warning warning.

_"For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: 'It might have been!'"  
-John Whittier_

** -x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-  
Prologue: 20 pieces of silver  
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-**

Ranma Saotome stared suspiciously at the short haired young woman sitting so composedly in front of him.

"What are you up to, Nabiki?"

"Moi? Whatever makes you think that?"

Butter wouldn't have melted in that smiling mouth.

"Because you're always up to something."

"I'm hurt, Ranma-baby. Here I am out of the goodness of my heart offering to forgive  
a whole third of your outstanding debt in exchange for just a little of your time  
and this is the thanks I get?"

Just in case, Ranma checked outside the dojo to see if any storm clouds were forming or lightning bolts flying.

No such luck. It was clear skies all around.

"How about a drink before we get to business? Tea, cola, juice?"

Ranma looked at the tray with the sparkling jugs and steaming tea pot. Did she really think he was that stupid?

"Just water."

A brief sour look crossed Nabiki's face almost too fast to be seen, but he saw it anyway. That would show her.

You had to wake up pretty early in the morning to put one over this pigtailed martial artist.

She plunked a glass full of cold water from the outside pump in front of him and then got herself a mug of tea.

He drained the glass in a series of thirsty gulps, the day was only getting hotter as the sun glared  
overhead and the young man had a sinking feeling that this 'quick chat' the middle Tendo had arranged  
was going to be awhile.

"It's really quite simple what I want you to do, even you can't possibly screw it up, Ranma."

Ranma glared at her. But he kept silent because he still owed her quite a lot of money. In his opinion  
whoever had come up with the concept of compound interest needed to have their ass kicked repeatedly.

"There are some people that are very interested in meeting you."

Ranma's eyes started to droop as Nabiki's voice began to turn into an unintelligible drone in his ears.  
How long was she going to keep talking? Why couldn't she just get to the point already?

"Am I boring you, Saotome?"

He tried to grunt an affirmative but to the boy's muzzy surprise, his lips refused to cooperate.

Shit, the water-

His head hit the floor with a soft thud.

"Sorry, Ranma-baby. But for the kind of money they were willing to offer I couldn't risk you refusing, now could I?"

Dumb jocks who watched movies really shouldn't try to hurt themselves thinking.  
The idiot had never even paid attention to the cups she'd used. But that was why  
Nabiki was a player and Ranma just a pawn.

The men who came to pick up the cargo were plain faced but proficient at their job.  
They hefted the unconscious young man into a waiting stretcher and strapped him down  
securely. Nabiki noted that one of them was already slipping a needle attached to a drip  
bag of solution to one of Ranma's arms to keep him quiet for the trip.

It was so nice to work with professionals for a change.

The van waiting by the stone wall marking the boundries of the Tendo residence was dark  
and devoid of any markings. It took only a few minutes for them to pack up their cargo  
and drive off, leaving Nabiki Tendo alone in the Dojo with a suitcase that she rubbed  
fondly as she contemplated how much the contents had just increased her personal net value.

"Pleasure doing business with you."

She would give them a few minutes headstart before making a few calls. After all, just because  
she'd made one deal didn't mean that she couldn't make a few more. Who could blame Nabiki if  
the fiancee brigade just so happened to stumble on where Ranma was being taken?

The arrogant pigtailed boy might be angry with her for awhile, but she could live with that.

Nabiki's face broke into a greedy smile.

**_Caveat emptor._**

Let the buyer beware.

** -x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-**

"Arrogant Bitch, isn't she?"

The civilian security uniform fit the speaker about as well as a housecat's collar did a tiger.

"Now now, Captain. We have what we came for."

The other speaker by contrast looked every inch a man of science. He looked almost too clean,  
as if dirt and grime were afraid to even be found in the same vicinity as him.

"I can't wait to see the look on that tight cunt's face when she realizes she's been had."

"Caveat emptor, Captain. We can leave her to the local law enforcement to deal with."

"I'd still like a crack at that little slut's pussy."

"As tempting at that might be, we are not compromising this project's security for a fast fuck.  
I trust that has been made clear to you, Captain."

An annoyed grunt was the only response.

There was silence for a time.

Then the second person spoke again.

"I believe that you can prepare your men to receive some univited guests. Remember, we want them alive."

"Understood, Sir."

** -x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-**

A few days later Nabiki wasn't smiling any more.

At first everything had seemed to be going according to plan. She'd sold the information at a healthy  
profit to the usual suspects. Shampoo, Ukyo and Kodachi had dropped everything and gone running off  
after the pigtailed boy. When they'd failed to turn up again that day she shrugged and dismissed it  
as nothing to worry about. Business was business.

When the buyers failed to return Ranma on the agreed upon day she was mildly annoyed. A few more calls  
were made and certain interested parties purchased the information at a mild discount. Nabiki had found  
it slightly amusing to have Miss Hinako of all people paying her in order to get her hands on  
_'that naughty deliquent'_.

None of them had come back either. But at least she got paid.

However now had come the final straw.

"**COUNTERFEIT?!**"

Every other head in the bank turned towards her like iron to a magnet.

"I'm afraid so, Miss Tendo. All of it."

Hell had no fury like a woman cheated out of her rightful gains. She would get them for this.  
She was going to sue their asses into poverty. She would bury them under lawsuits until they  
breathed red ink and shit foreclosure notices. She would-

A hand on her shoulder broke through the red hazed clouds of plotted revenge.

"I'm going to have ask you to come with us."

Unsmiling police officers in uniform stood behind her.

"But! But! It's not my-"

"You have the right to remain silent-"

"You can't do this to me! Do you know who I am?"

This couldn't be happening to her! Bad things were only supposed to happen to other people!

She was Nabiki Tendo! Nobody could beat her at her own game. Nobody!

"-anything you say can be used against you in a court of law."

It only got worse from there.

** -End Prologue 20 pieces of Silver**


	2. Prologue: Beware of the Boogeyman

**No Turning Back  
A Pokewomen Universe Story  
by Shade**

Porn with Plot Warning.

Copyrighted character use warning.

Ignoring what a lot of other people wrote warning.

Warning about warning warning warning.

_ "The efficiency of the truly national leader consists primarily in preventing the division  
of the attention of a people, and always in concentrating it on a single enemy."  
-Adolf Hitler_

** -x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-  
Prologue: Beware of the Boogeyman  
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-**

His name was Doctor Jim Sukebe.

Once upon a time he had been a scientist with radicial theories about time and space  
that had been mocked and derided by his fellow men of science.

He had proved them all wrong. And in his triumph he achieved that rarest and greatest of  
human treaures, contentment. He'd had everything he'd ever wanted, and his knowledge could  
have helped humanity achieve a new Golden Age.

And then that stupid woman had broken into his home and ruined everything.

He wanted to hate Linda McKenzie for what she'd done. But the scientist in him refused to make it that easy.

She had been prejudiced in her own way, but she could never have possibly expected what had happened  
after she'd filed that report.

For all her many faults, McKenzie had been the product of a system that she had trusted and believed in.  
She had been raised to believe that the rights of women were a foregone conclusion and that the people  
that read the stories in the paper and watched them on the television were educated rational beings who  
could make good decisions based on trustworthy information.

And because she had believed all of that, she was now one of the experimental subjects being mercilessly  
used in the military barracks above the lab that Sukebe was imprisoned in.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Her name had once been Linda McKenzie. Before she'd been brought here. Before they'd changed her.

_** "Squeal Lil Doggy!! Take it all!!"**_

Before she'd been sent to Hell.

The chunky private violating her ass squeezed the dog-eared woman's breasts like they were made of rubber.  
It felt like he was going to tear them off of her, there were already black and blue splotches from  
the continued abuse that had gone on for what seemed like forever. She couldn't even scream because of  
the rubber lined porthole gag that kept her mouth open and her teeth covered for the smelly soldier in  
front to shove his pissy smelling cock so deep into her mouth that it made her jaw ache. Her battered pussy  
had mercifully stopped feeling anything beyond a dull ache after the endless train that had gone on for  
day after day with only brief pauses to hose her down clean enough for the next round of assaults to begin.

Dimly the person who had once called herself Linda knew that she was bleeding from her ass, she could feel  
the blood trickling down the insides of her thighs and smell the sharp iron tang.

Linda had not been a religious person. But the small wisp that was all that was left of her sense of self  
prayed for death now. Anything to make the pain stop. Anything-

"What the fuck!?"

"Shit! I think the bitch is having a seizure!"

The three men pulled out of her madly jerking form as frothy white foam spilled out of the woman's mouth.

Her eyes rolled back until only the whites were showing as her arms twisted in their restraints until  
the bones snapped like wet twigs. Strange bulges began popping up under the shivering skin as foul smelling  
blood began to spurt from both vagina and anus.

Then she dropped to the floor and became still.

The men in the room stared at the body. Those nearest swore and did their best to wipe the stinky fluids  
they'd been splashed with from themselves. It was as if a toy they'd gotten had just broken and now they  
needed a new one.

"Fuck, I think she's dead."

"Well you know the drill. Grab her arm and we'll drag her to the cart for disposal."

Two of the semi-clothed men detatched themselves from the main group and began dragging the limp body away.

Neither of them noticed that the woman's body was beginning to swell rapidly.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

His name was Billy. He was a good old southern boy who had signed up to join the military  
because it was that or became a butcher at the local slaughterhouse. Besides, everybody  
knew that girls would drop their panties at the sight of a man in uniform.

Billy was a great believer in Jesus. Especially the parts where the smiting of the fags  
and the making the sandniggers discover the Good Book were concerned. Praise the Lord and  
pop the little muthafuckas with the ammunition, that was Billy's motto.

He'd jumped at the chance to join the White Eagles. A good unit without the blacks  
and the yellows and the brownies. The officers had been very good and very smart, even  
letting their men know that the President and Vice President themselves had the utmost  
confidence in the White Eagles and the super secret project that would make America  
the undisputed big daddy of the world forever.

And then there was all the free poontang. Ever since they'd started popping out those girls  
with those funny parts out of the labs down below they'd been sending them up to the men  
for 'testing'. And because they weren't really people that meant that anything that was bad  
to do to a white woman was perfectly okay to do to them.

Which was why Billy was helping to drag off another one of the test subjects for disposal.

Which was why Billy was about to die.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Sukebe looked at the subject in the pod full of blue liquid. Perfectly preserved in suspended animation,  
the boy's nude form looked like it was sleeping peacefully. The doctor did not know his name, none  
of the people they'd brought in here were ever given one. They usually didn't need them for long.

But the boy, the boy was different. Without someone like him, Project Solomon would have most likely failed.

There were times that Jim wondered if it wouldn't have been better to have simply terminated  
the young man's life support system even if it would have meant certain death for himself.  
Sukebe knew that he would only be allowed to live as long as he produced results for his American masters.  
Their own scientists had managed to reverse engineer many of his inventions, but the secrets to the genetic  
manipulation they wanted remained secure in the only container Jim had ever trusted for them, his own mind.

He hated them all. With every fiber of his being, he hated these men and their masters who sat back  
and let others do their dirty work for them. They had taken everything from him. Even his name.

Even now he could see them watching him from above, the sniveling cowards who dreamed mad dreams of power.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

His name was General Rummy Turgidson. He was a large framed man of the old school of military thought.  
Bigger is better and he who has the most bombs to drop on the enemy wins. He knew why God had created  
Enlisted Men, it was so they could charge in frontal assaults until the enemy was overrun by sheer  
weight of numbers. Turgidson also knew which side his bread was buttered on and could kiss ass with  
the best of them.

"We're honored by your presence, Sir."

"No need for the formalities, Rummy. I'm just here for a little look around."

It was a lie and both men knew it. Just as both of them also knew that the other knew it too.  
Project Solomon had been classified at the highest levels and operated in the black. Not even  
their rubberstampers in Congress knew that it existed. They were small men and women with petty  
dreams of easy money and long golfing trips. They lacked the will, the vision and above all else  
the good bloodlines for the Divine Right of Rulers to rule.

"Soon the world will be our oyster."

Vice President Dick Ripper savored the sound of it. World Domination. None of this stupid pretending  
to be a Democracy for the lesser classes bullshit. It would be a return to the good old days when you  
could use a whip on the poor people when they got too uppity and spoke back to their betters. Where Bitches  
knew their proper place, on their knees and on their backs. After all, hadn't he taught his own sweet daughter that?  
She was a good trained little slut now and he was looking forward to his first son from her soon.

"What's the status of the first batch?"

"The neo-natal chambers are already operating at maximum capacity around the clock.  
We should have the first ten million ready for delivery in a matter of days."

"Excellent. And the Omegas?"

"Prepped, though I hardly see any need to use them."

Bigger might be better, but even Turidson had misgivings about superweapons that he didn't fully understand even now.

"You're not paid to think, General. You merely need to follow orders. We will tell you what you need to think."

"Yes Sir."

"Good, good. Once the notorious Dr. Sukebe launches his terrorist attack against those bleeding heart liberals  
up North, we will of course have no choice but to declare martial law and ensure that there are no disruptions  
to the command structure during a time of War. Can't have a stinking coon trying to think he can order  
a white man around, now can we?"

Both men laughed loudly. A boogeyman made an excellent scapegoat.  
Not to mention a wonderful excuse for demanding more funding  
to secure the Homeland against the _'Evil Mastermind'_.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

They had just reached the door when it happened.

Two horrific black spiked pincers exploded from out of the bulging belly in a spray of gore.  
The two men who had been holding the body saw it drop to the ground and then realized a moment later  
that it was because their hands had been severed at the wrists. They shrieked and clutched at their  
bloody stumps in pain and terror as something monstrous erupted from within the sheath of dead skin  
that had been Linda McKenzie.

Grown men who had thought they feared nothing on Earth began to scream themselves hoarse.

It had fangs and claws, pincers and spikes. But worst of all was the sheer wrongness of the body structure.  
Black chitinous armor encompassed a swollen arachnoid abdomen capped with four lethally armored legs all of  
which were visibly growing in size before their unbelieving eyes. A blood red hourglass was the only  
marking distinguishable on that dark abomination and it blazed like a sentence of death.

There were no guns in the barracks. And the monster was between them and the only exit.

But they were soldiers. They decided to go down fighting.

What they didn't know was that the creature was armed with a venom that paralyzed major motor functions  
but did nothing to impede the nerve clusters that controlled pleasure and pain. Nor that it had two  
fully functional openings leading to its digestive tract lined with shark-like rows of razor sharp  
serrated teeth.

The barracks had been soundproofed for the men to enjoy their prizes without disturbing the rest of the base.

When it was all over, the entire room from floor to ceiling was literally painted in red.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Well General, I must say that everything looks up to spec so far. The President will be pleased."

"Of course he will, Sir."

Rummy returned the little wink. Everybody who knew anything this far into the inner circle knew  
that the Fourth Branch of Government was running the show and that he answered to nobody.  
Not that they weren't all on the same page, but the manchild was too emotional to be trusted with  
the true reins of power. He made a much better figurehead, especially dressed up in a flight suit.

"I trust that there will be no slip-ups. We may own the local journalist whores,  
but some people still seem to think that reporting means telling the truth."

"Of course not, Sir. We're not like those stupid fuckups at Guantanamo-"

An alarm klaxon on the observation deck picked that moment to start blaring its little electronic head off.

Dick glared at Turgidson.

"You were saying?"

General Rummy paled. Then he started shouting at his subordinates to find out just what the hell was going on.

In all of the confusion, nobody paid any attention to the lab down below.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Dr. Sukebe did not start at the sudden wail of the alarm. He had expected something  
like this to happen sooner or later. In fact, he had rather been counting on it.

There were three other scientists and an armed guard here in the lab with him, all of them male.  
Given the kinds of experiments and research being conducted in here, that was not surprising.

It also made things so much simpler.

He quietly slipped a hand under his terminal, his face remaining calm and composed, giving away nothing as his  
fingers found the device he'd built under the very noses of his captors. Meanwhile with his free hand he opened up  
on his screen a small and almost inconspicuous program that he'd spent months working on.

When the soldier that had been assigned inside the lab came over, the doctor knocked over a few pens to the floor.

When the man's head turned toward the movement, the doctor coolly jabbed him in the arm  
with the medical injecter and depressed its full payload directly into the man's bloodstream.

Even as the man collapsed to the floor, writhing in agony as his body's genetic structure began to try  
and rewrite itself into an entirely different gender and species, Jim started up his backdoor into the network.

There was a solid click and hiss of pressurized air as the reinforced environmental doors to the lab  
locked down as their systems were notified that a dangerous biological agent had escaped containment.

Sukube bent down next to the still screaming guard and relieved him of his holstered gun. The soldier was  
in no condition to resist or even notice, all his frantic attention was on the sensation of a thousand tiny  
knives attempting to reduce his bubbling penis into a pair of vaginal lips while the muscles on his chest  
dissolved into a runny jelly and attempted to reform into fatty tissue for a double row of breasts.

The half-asian scientist coldly contemplated the shrieking tortured form caught in the middle of an agonizing  
transformation between man and Pokegirl. The Phase I version of the Pokegirl Serum had been deemed a failure  
because the mutagenic genecracking had failed to stabilize. None of the subjects of the initial clinical trials  
had survived as their bodies had melted over several hours into puddles of runny DNA, the doomed men screaming  
during every minute of it until their lungs had finally fallen apart.

It would have been an act of mercy to shoot the wretched creature.

Dr. Sukebe was not feeling particularly merciful.

The other scientists were still staring in shock when Sukebe quietly lined up the pistol and shot them.

Then he got down to the real work.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"What the hell is he doing?!"

Ripper banged on the thick double-paned bulletproof glass as he took in the bloody scene below.

That treacherous bastard! How dare he betray them before they could dispose of him!

A technician looked up from his monitoring station.

"General, we have a breach in the DARPA network!"

"Stop him! Lock it all down!"

"We can't, Sir. He's changed all of the codes."

"What?! You idiots!!"

"Oh my God!! What the Hell is that thing?!"

Everyone's attention turned towards the security monitor that had been flickering from room to room  
in the base but was now stopped on a raging battle in the main elevator room that led to the lower  
levels of the base.

The sharp bark of military assault rifles on full auto could now be heard crackling through the speakers  
as the man who'd spoken out turned up the volume.

_ "Help me! Help me!! It's eating my dick!! It's eating my dick!!"_

The voice changed into a soprano in mid-scream.

_"Oh God **It HURTS!!** Shoot Me!! **SHOOT ME!!**"_

A technician started vomiting uncontrollably onto his console.

General Turgidson looked sick as well, but he was made of sterner stuff.

"Break out the flame throwers and anti-tank weapons. It doesn't look like normal ammunition  
can penetrate that armor. Instruct the men to pull back and seal that monster on Level C."

The communications officer fumbled for his headset and started relaying his superior's orders,  
grateful for the task to prevent him from having to think about what he'd just witnessed.

Rummy nodded. This was only a single monster and while that was bad it wasn't a catastrophe.  
But if they didn't get that damn bastard in the lab quickly, his future career was going  
to look very bleak indeed.

"Captain Mandrake, get some men down there and get those doors open as of yesterday, understood?"

"Yes Sir! Corporal Biggs, Private Wedge, come with me."

The three soldiers hurried out.

"Mr. Vice President, you should evacuate while we sterilize the base."

"Leave? At our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate Sukebe's chances."

"But Sir-"

"General Turgidson, I am in the middle of a US military base. There is no safer place for me to be."

"Yes Sir."

"Besides, that freak is blocking the main way out. I'll wait till your men have cleared it out first."

"Oh."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Dr Sukebe's hands danced on the keyboard like they were on fire.

At the very beginning of his captivity he had harbored some hope that the people who'd abducted him  
in the night would release him and his family unharmed if he just did what they wanted. That little  
warming spark had faded the night he'd accidently overheard one of the guards making a crude joke  
about _'the little bitch'_. When he'd found the video file of what they'd done to his girls,  
it had died completely, leaving only cold ash in what had once been his heart.

The jailers probably thought that this was an escape attempt.

They were wrong. Doctor Jim Sukebe was a man with nothing to go back to. Nothing to Lose.

This was _*Revenge*_.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Computer controlled defensive missile batteries went online, ignoring the frantic commands from their  
human operators to shut down. Friendly aircraft were suddenly flagged as hostiles and warning lights  
screamed in the faces of surprised pilots as they suddenly found themselves under fire in the last  
place they'd ever expected it.

Nor was the desert base the only one to suddenly experience terminal equipment malfunctions.

Almost every major American military installation and capital ship across the globe was tied  
into the DARPA network in one fashion or another. Most of them had been upgraded over the years  
for increased and in some cases almost total reliance on dedicated computer control  
and targeting for their advanced fixed defenses. This time technical superiority came around to bite them on the ass.

Chaos erupted across the globe as soldiers, sailors and pilots suddenly came under attack by their own weapons of war.

But that was just the feint.

The true attack was piggybacked onto a radio signal that broadcast unnoticed in all of the confusion.

Inaudible to humans, it would nevertheless prove to be the deadliest message ever sent in the history of mankind.

_ 'Wipe them out. All of them.'_

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

There were hundreds of thousands of them. Innocent looking white and red spheres in various US military bases  
around the globe. They were in storerooms and hangers, loaded on planes and ships, transported by trucks and  
rail. The devices emitted no radiation, chemical weapons signature or detectable harmful microbes. In short,  
they were harmless oddities that high command had ordered delivered as 'relief supplies' intended for certain  
other countries that America had minor differences of opinion with, such as who owned the resources on their land  
and for that matter who owned the land itself.

And indeed this was not a lie. The balls themselves were no threat at all.

But the contents they carried in stasis were an entirely different story. Fortunately there were many safety features  
installed to prevent an accidental premature discharge by some fool with more curiosity then sense.

Unfortunately, this was no accident and Sukebe was no fool.

As the carrier waves passed through, red beams of light fired off like the corona of the sun  
from suddenly blinking spheres as they carried out their programming faithfully.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The Flight of B-52s had been flying over the Rockies when it happened.

Each aircraft's normal cargo of bombs had been replaced with a single metallic ovoid that filled  
their entire ordnance bay and weighed in near the limits of their maximum lift capacity. The flight  
crews had been carefully instructed to maintain radio silence as they flew towards the southern border,  
where they would drop the devices into a country where the local leader had dared to oppose the glorious  
advance of the free market into his nation's energy reserves.

They were just coming up on the New Mexicio border when the first plane simply disintegrated.

From out of the expanding cloud of energized particles a large blurry form plunged towards the ground far below.

The rest of the squadron began to go into evasive maneuvers as one by one bombers were destroyed from the inside  
out by Flame, Ice and Lightning. More explosions marked the passing of the other planes as something too massive  
for them to contain ruptured their steel frames like it was wet tissue paper.

Eyes gleamed.

They had heard the call...and would obey.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Sukebe looked upon his work. And it was good.

Fools. Arrogant Fools, the lot of them. And now they would pay. All of them would pay dearly.

The Pokegirls that they'd thought were still at an immature and mallable stage in their lifecycle,  
waiting to be programmed for use, were actually fully grown and deadly adults. All they had lacked  
was the trigger phrase to dispel the suppressed physical changes. And now that trigger had just  
been sent to all of them.

The scientist could hear dull thuds on the door from the outside. They would break in eventually once  
they had the right equipment, but by then it would be far too late to stop him. He had all the time  
in the world.

He moved dreamily towards another console and brought up the schematics for the next point of assault.

_ Yes, this would be perfect._

He sent the activation code.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

A new alarm screamed in the commander center. It overrode the other klaxons like the sea overwhelmed a drop of rain.

"What the hell is that," screamed Dick Ripper as someone managed to lower the volume before they all went deaf.

"Oh my God. He's activating Typhonna."

The Vice President grabbed the unresisting soldier that had spoken and shook him hard.  
He might as well have been shaking a wooden marionette for all the effect that it had.

"What the fuck are you talking about?!"

"We're all going to die."

"Oh no I'm not! I have cunts to fuck and pussies to shoot in the face!  
I am not going to let a Fucking Chink ruin my plans!!"

Nobody bothered to correct the Vice President on ancestral accuracy.

Dick barked at his Secret Service escort, "Come on, If I want something done right  
around here it looks like I'll have to fucking do it myself!!"

He stormed out, followed by the men in suits and sunglasses.

The rest of the room breathed a small sigh of relief.

A few moments later the doors hissed open again.

"Sir, did you forgot some-"

The officer's voice died away as he stared up at what had just come through the door.

It was not Vice President Ripper.

"Our Father who art in Heaven-"

The doors hissed shut.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

They came streaming out by the thousands from their artifical creches, their naked forms far too perfect  
for any random chance of simple biology to explain. An unstoppable living tide that swept away anything  
that stood in the way of their urgent biological imperative.

Goggling soldiers at observation posts watched in stunned amazement at what seemed to be a never ending stream  
of naked young women coming in every spectrum of the rainbow, erupted from the many doors and windows of the base.

They ignored the soldiers around them, only the ones directly in front of them or those who attempted to stop  
any of the humanoids fell to suddenly revealed fangs, talons, claws, stingers or a simple kick to the crotch  
that pulverized flesh and shattered bones. When they hit the walls, it barely slowed any of them down as the ones  
in front simply went through it and kept on going with the others following fast in their wake. Some of them took  
flight in the literal sense as transparent wings like that of a giant insect materialized out of their backs and  
thrummed like a swarm of bees. Others flickered and vanished in bursts of blue light while more winged beauties  
with the white wings of angels soared for the sky.

The beings that would eventually be known as Pokewomen were at their most basic level, creatures of instinct.

And right now it was telling them to flee for their lives.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The wail of the alarms was an orchestra of triumph. The exhilarating feeling of madness carried him  
up on a euphoric physical high that kept a smile on his face as he tampered with safeguard after safeguard,  
sabotaging the military's communications networks and infecting or destroying every file and record he could  
gain access to. He had just finished purging the databanks of the Anti-Pokegirl weapons research when inspiration  
struck again.

Ah yes, how could he have forgotten that in all of the excitement?

Project Hestia. The Command and Control System of Psychic Dominators for the military's genetic supersoldiers.  
An Abomination that could still stop his creations and save humanity from its richly deserved reward.

Well, he couldn't have that now, could he?

It took only a few minutes for the sniffer program to find the access codes.

The metal plates at the back of the lab slid noiselessly back to reveal another secure chamber that glowed softly.

Sukube picked up the pistol in one hand as he walked into the room.

There they were, the twenty seven progenitors of his creations. The mothers of his adopted children.  
They looked back at him from where they floated completely naked in their life support tubes.  
Twenty seven pairs of eyes connected to twenty seven pulsating brains and exposed spinal cords.

And nothing else.

He emptied the pistol's magazine into the life support system and nodded in satisfaction as the green  
indicators by each tank flickered into an unhealthy flashing yellow as their liquid contents began  
to darken and go opaque. He stayed and watched until the last indicator had turned an ugly steady red  
before throwing the now useless gun away and walking back into his lab.

Only one final detail remained for him to take care of now.

The boy had to die.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Major Gorman stared down at the still smoking carcass that lay spread out over several meters of corridor.

He still couldn't believe it. It had taken the combined firepower of several rocket launchers, a heavy machinegun,  
multiple grenades and no less then three flamethrowers to finally kill the monster. And it had cost them over  
forty men to do it.

Most of their casualties were already dead.

They were considered the lucky ones.

He could hear the screams behind him as the medics tried to save one of the survivors. There wasn't much left  
of the wreck that had once been a highly trained soldier except for his head and torso which ended at the hips.  
That thing had simply grabbed and eaten everyone it had managed to get its claws on, starting on the softer jiggly bits  
with that Vagina from Hell that had made grown men scream in horror at the sight of in action. It had seemed to  
enjoy keeping its prey alive for as long as possible, carefully avoiding any vital organs until the very end.

But once they'd started pressing it, the creature had settled for quickly devouring the limbs and genitals  
before tossing the still screaming body aside in favor of the next target that caught its eye.

Behind the officer Private Hudson knelt down, trying to cover his ears  
as he muttered over and over to himself, "Game Over Man, Game Over!"

This wasn't what he'd signed up for. Fighting soldiers or terrorists was no problem, at least they were human  
and you could shoot back. But that Nightmare like a cross between a woman and a giant spider was simply  
beyond his comprehension. Bullets had just *bounced* off of it, even trying to shoot the damn thing in the eyes  
or mouth hadn't worked. It was as if the mutant bitch from hell had some kind of invisible forcefield protecting  
its softer spots. He'd actually seen the machinegun cause some kind of ripple effect in the space around its  
head when the crew had opened up on it. It wasn't until they'd turned on the flamethrowers that they'd managed  
to do more then annoy it. Whatever armor had been protecting it apparently didn't extend to bone charring heat.

That, combined with an intensive concentration of firepower, had managed to finally waste the monster.

Only one small comforting thought kept Hudson's mind from cracking completely.

_ At least this was the only one._

He looked down at the still smoldering head which might have been called a rather attractive blonde if not  
for the teeth, red eyes and the fangs that trickled a pale green poison that smoked where it touched the floor.

It was not the face of Linda McKenzie.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Dr Sukebe looked up at the capsule. Just one more push of a button and the total destruction of the Pokewoman project  
would be complete. Nothing would be able to stop his creations from wiping out the humanity that had proven beyond  
the shadow of a doubt that it could not be allowed to survive.

All he had to do was deactivate the life support system and the sleeper would never wake up.

It would be so easy.

Surely the boy would welcome such a quiet painless passage. He would never feel a thing.

What was one more death after all?

They had taken away everything from him. Everything.

_ 'Master?'_

Jim gasped. That voice, it couldn't be!

He looked at the capsule again and there he saw her face, her warm eyes full of love, looking back at him from the glass.

Melinda.

He ran towards her, unaware of anything else as his entire universe shrank until the only things that existed were  
the two of them. But even as he reached out to touch her the image was fading like the last remnants of a dream.

"No!! Come back!! Please come back!!"

The scientist clawed at the cold unyielding surface until his nails broke and his fingers bled.

"Melinda. Come back to me, please."

He was sobbing now, curling up into a shaking ball as the memories overwhelmed him.

_'Master! Melinda will do her best!'_

'Eh heh, Melinda made a mistake.'

'Does it hurt, Master?'

'Master, why are you crying? Melinda will cheer you up!'

'Master, Melinda loves you. I-I love you. Yes! Melinda finally said it! Melinda is so happy!'

'Yes Master, Melinda is very happy. Melinda will love Master's children with all her heart.'

'Master! Master! Please, let Melinda help Master!'

'It hurts!! It hurts! Stop!! Master's child!! Don't hurt Master's child!!'

'Melinda....is...sorry....Mast-'

More names and faces flooded to the surface of his mind. Tamlin, Diora, Natasha, Rii, Kiena and Morrim.

_ 'Master, Tamlin will always protect you. Always.'_

'Master needs to relax. Natasha will help him relax. Just lie back and leave everything to Natasha.'

'Don't worry Master! Diora can fix anything! No problem! Now where's the duct tape....'

'Master needs to eat more. Look at yourself. Now sit down and eat or Kiena will be very upset with you.'

'Rii will sing this song for you, Master. This is the only way Rii knows how to help Master.'

'Does Master like how Morrim is dressed. Ohh, yes. Morrim can see how much Master likes it now.'

All of them had been so precious to him. He had loved them all. They had been a family.

The soldiers had just tossed their broken bodies into a pile like common garbage.

**"UUOOOOOOOOORAAAGHHHHHHHYAAAAAAAAHHHHHHOOOGGGRRRRRRRAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"**

It was not a yell. It was not a scream. It was a primal sound that ripped out of his chest  
and vibrated from the very marrow of his bones.

It was Pain personified, Agony given shape and form.

_'Master, we love you.'_

And then Dr. Jim Sukebe opened his eyes for what seemed to be the first time in a very long time.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

General Turgidson nodded at the Vice President from the doors outside of the lab.  
His men were were trying to burn their way in, cutting through the armor inch by white hot inch.

"I have some men disabling the transmitter right now, Sir. He won't be in the network for much longer."

"Hurry it up. I want him stopped before he lets loose this Typho whatchamacallit."

"Yes Sir."

The ground trembled underneath them.

"We'll also need a scapegoat if we're going to salvage anything out of this."

There was an unpleasant pause.

"And the good Doctor?"

"Killed while resisting arrest. I think that should be good enough. Don't you?"

"Yes Sir."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

** "NO!"**

Dr Sukebe banged his fists helplessly as his terminal's screen suddenly flashed **_'Disconnected'_**.

He had been trying to fix the damage he'd done, not out of any sense of obligation to the military power  
that had caused so much pain and suffering, but for the rest of the world which now faced the worst peril  
since the asteroid that had wiped out the dinosaurs. But they'd cut him out of DARPA and now there was  
no way left for him to stop them in time.

"Damnit!"

The adrenaline-fueled rush had worn off. He was running on terror and barely controlled panic now.  
He couldn't send any orders to them. The controls were gone, destroyed by his own hands.  
The military was reeling from the surprise attack, worse, they had no idea of the true nature  
of the threat they faced.

The Pokewomen had been designed to be the ultimate super soldiers. Any attempt to face them with  
a conventional frontal assault was doomed to failure. Every single one of his creations had combat  
bred into them from birth and they learned fast. They didn't need planes or tanks or artillery,  
they were all of those things and more. Combined with the geometric reproduction rate that a  
high stress environment would trigger, the numbers of Pokewomen would jump from a few million  
to hundreds of millions in a matter of months.

_ And if Nuclear Weapons were deployed against them...._

He was witnessing the greatest disaster in Human History.

And he could not stop it. _Dear Gods, he couldn't stop it!!_

Jim sobbed, his eyes clenched tight in pain.

"Melinda, please help me! Tell me what to do!!"

_'Master! Look, Melinda discovered the Internet!'_

Dr Sukebe's eyes flashed open as he looked up at the screen.

It was crazy. It was insane.

And it just might work.

The scientist glanced back at the door.

They were almost a third of the way through now.

He was running out of time.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Hey Greg, take a look at this."

"The whole world is turning into a madhouse and you want me to look at one of your porn sites?"

"Seriously Dude, I think you should take a look at this. No Fooling."

"It had better be go-what the hell?!"

"This shit is way more up your alley then mine, Bro. I just signed up for Berkeley because the local  
chicks are hot and the professors don't take no Shit from The Man."

"Christ on a crutch, it's dumping into all of the servers. It must be hitting every hub on the network."

"Greg, no-speekee computersee. In English please."

There was a short pause.

"Somebody really wants people to look at this. Whatever the hell *it* is."

"Let's take a peek then."

"Wait! It could be a virus or something."

"Does that look like a advertisement for Free Viagra to you?"

"Holy shit."

"Now that is some funky ass mumbojumbo. Looks like some kind of bomb or something."

"No...there's no detonator. And those circuit designs...they're like nothing I've ever seen before."

"I know that look, Bro. If you wore it around girls more often I might not be so worried about you all the time."

"Yeah, yeah."

"So, wanna try and build one of these funky monkeys?"

"I think...that might be a good idea."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

It was done. Whatever else happened, humanity had been given its chance.

Most of the world probably wouldn't see it. Among those that did, the majority of them would probably  
ignore it or dismiss it as some hacker's prank. But maybe a few of them would take the information  
seriously, perhaps even enough of them to make a difference.

He looked back again.

They were almost through. He could hear voices coming through even now.

Soon he would be reunited with his loved ones.

But not before he saved the boy.

Sukebe knew all of the lab's secrets after his long captivity in it.

He raised his voice, "Ragnorok Seven One Seven."

"Authorization code."

He could feel the cold beads of sweat on his brow as he replied,  
"Echo Victor Oscar Lima Uniform Tango India Oscar November Three Three Three."

"Code confirmed. Please state command."

"Initiate Failsafe Winkle One One Nine. Command Override Lima Oscar Victor Echo Uniform."

"Winkle One One Nine initiated. Beginning cryostasis containment."

The fluid in the gently glowing capsule was liquid one moment and then solid the next.

"Subject successfully contained."

The capsule's clear surface vanished as an armored sheath slid over it and it began to quietly sink through the floor.

Somewhere below, there was a secure room with its own independent grid of nuclear batteries.

The boy would be safe there until the time was right.

And then? That would be up to-

Behind him he heard the door finally crash down and the sound of boots heading in at a run.

He looked at his console.

There was still one last thing to do.

A rifle barked behind him and a burst of red hot pain erupted from his shoulder, almost spinning him completely around.

Somehow, he found the strength to stagger forward and hit the last key.

_ "Melinda...I'm coming."_

He never heard the crack of the shot that blew his head all over the terminal.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Fucking Asshole."

Dick Ripper spitefully emptied a dozen more rounds into the dead man's body.

It made him feel a little better.

Billions of dollars plowed into the Project and it had all been ruined by one man.  
The PR disaster alone was going to be worse then those stupid photos of sandnigger pyramids.

"Stupid Fucking Cocksucker!!"

A technical specialist hurried over to Turgidson from the terminals.

"General, we're completely locked out. Whatever he did, he made sure it would stick."

"I want solutions, soldier. Not more problems."

"We're going to have to physically strip it down, Sir."

"Then why are you still standing here?"

"Yes Sir."

The man scurried back to join the others already starting to remove the physical casings from the machines.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The ground shook as if hit by a Titan's hammer.

In the underground containment bunker a large metallic ovoid rocked violently in its electromagnetically sealed enclosure.  
Steel alloy shrieked like a alley cat given an acid enema. Broken hoses hissed and thrashed like snakes on crack,  
spitting white jets of liquid helium into the air.

Light began to pour forth from cracks forming in the structure's smooth surface.  
White at first, then rapidly condensing into a foreboding dark red.

A rumbling began.

More cracks began to completely engulf the sphere in a regular geometric pattern.

A roar that had never come from any natural creature to walk the Earth seared through the underground room,  
pounding throgh metal, rock and sand to finally echo out into the open sky.

Fine red swirls of light and rapidly clustering particles began to fill the chamber.

From the depths of the cloud emerged a claw so large that it could have spit a dozen men on it like chicken kabobs.  
The digit ripped though the buckling walls as if they were cotton fluff. More mass began pushing the bunker  
beyond any limits its designers had ever dreamed of.

There was a muffled explosion as the final seals failed.

Typhonna was free.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"What the hell was that?"

Turgidson couldn't meet Ripper's eyes.

"It could be...many things, Sir."

"Such as?"

The General squirmed under that cold gaze.

"Well-"

** "YAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHH!!!!"**

An earpiercing scream from behind them made both men jump.

Something bounced wetly into the room.

It was a man's arm. The camo sleeve of his uniform still clung to it.

And then the Ebony Nightmare Bitch from Hell was in the room among them.

Soldiers dropped what they were doing and snatched up their rifles to open fire on it.  
Secret Service agents dived for cover as their service pistols barked loudly, doing their  
duty to protect their charge.

They might as well have tried hurling water balloons for all the effect it had.

Dick Ripper stumbled back, slipping on a stray puddle of blood as the creature darted back  
and forth around the room, snatching up soldiers and agents one man at a time.

Razor sharp claws disarmed them in the literal sense while the set of humanoid appendages  
above pulled the unfortunate victim close into an obscene mockery of affection that brought  
the beast's frontal pelvis in alignment. Lips pulled back to reveal a dripping hole that  
pulsed in a steady rhythm which caused the rows and rows of serrated teeth to rise and fall.

And then it started to eat them.

Screams of terror changed from tenors to sopranos as the geldings commenced.

Ripper scrambled on his hands and knees for someplace to hide.

Behind him he heard Turgidson shouting something, but whatever it was he never found out  
as the General suddenly shrieked as he was seized. He kept on screaming for several minutes  
after that until a wet popping sound abruptly cut him off.

The Vice President suddenly realized he was all alone now.

The only sound was that of blood dripping from various parts onto various parts of the room.

He whimpered. It was same sound his distant ancestors had made back when they were small rodents  
trying to avoid being dinner for large hungry reptiles.

Ripper looked at the gun he held in his hands.

He was not a brave man. But he was out of options and there was no way  
he was letting this thing get him alive.

The old man stuck the barrel into his mouth and closed his eyes.

He pulled the trigger.

_ *Click*_

He pulled it again.

_ *click*_

A horrible realization suddenly seized him in its cold clutches. He had used up the entire clip on Sukebe's dead body.

His hand fumbled in his pockets for a spare clip. In his clumsy haste he dropped the ammunition onto the floor.

As he reached out to pick it up, something wet and slimy dripped onto the back of his neck.

Slowly, as if in a bad dream he hoped to wake up from, Vice President Dick Ripper  
looked up into the grinning face of Linda McKenzie.

And then he started to scream.

He would be screaming for a very long time.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

In a small room the capsule lay with its armored shroud facing up towards the blank ceiling.

Faint green lights were the only illumination in the empty darkness.

The Sleeper slept, but did not dream.

** -End Prologue: Beware of the Boogeyman**


	3. Prologue: Hawks and Doves

**No Turning Back  
A Pokewomen Universe Story  
by Shade**

Porn with Plot Warning.

Copyrighted character use warning.

Ignoring what a lot of other people wrote warning.

Warning about warning warning warning.

_"Man is his own worst enemy."  
-Cicero_

** -x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-  
Prologue: Hawks and Doves  
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-**

_ '...The Death Toll across the nation is estimated at over 750,000-'_

*Click*

_ '...The Dow fell over 3,000 points today before trading was called to a halt by the SEC-'_

*Click*

_ '...Worst Military Disaster in US history-'_

*Click*

_ '...Over 143,000 US troops in Iraq are presumed dead after an attack by the notorious terrorist  
Dr. Sukebe destroyed the Green Zone and other major US fortifications. Angry mobs of Iraqis  
swarmed over retreating Coalition forces before they could be evacuated over the border-'_

*Click*

_ '...Iran's citizens danced in the streets after the announcement that virtually  
all US forces in the Persian Gulf were annihilated by terrorist attacks-'_

*Click*

_ '...Oil hit a record $700 a barrel today. Concerns about further supply disruptions have economists  
predicting the first Global Depression since 1929-'_

*Click*

_ '...Next on FOX News. Liberals, Great Big Traitors or Greatest Traitors against America? But first-'_

*Click*

_ '...confirmed that the creatures appear to look like naked young women. The American League of Decency  
has filed a complaint against all broadcast media that witnessed the attacks, citing that any showing  
of nude females is sinful and a violation of airtime standards-'_

*Click*

_ '...Former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Jerkoff was lynched by a crowd of angry citizens after allegedly  
telling them to employ duct tape to secure their homes from the creatures. Local law enforcement at the scene  
reportedly provided the rope and helped to tie the knot-'_

*Click*

_ '...has imposed a media blackout as the trail of devastation stretches from Arizona through West Virgina.  
Stretched National Guard units have been evacuating citizens in a two hundred mile radius as the unknown  
source of the destruction continues to advance-'_

*Click*

_ '-Confirmed sightings of unknown creatures around the world from Berlin to Australia. They are believed to  
be the creations of the notorious bio-terrorist, Dr Sukebe. A worldwide manhunt has ensued for  
the alleged mastermind-'_

*Click*

_ '...In other news, hospitals across the world are reporting strange readings on thousands of ultrasounds  
of developing fetuses. No link between race or age has been determined among the pregnant women. Doctors  
continue to be puzzled by this sudden development and many are speculating that it is related in some way  
to the recent attack by Dr. Sukebe, who was a internationally renowned scientist before his descent into  
murderous terrorism-'_

*Click*

"Dude, just turn it off already. That shit is just depressingly painful."

"Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something."

"Damn, we really must be in deep shit if you're going all movie buff on me."

"The government's declared Martial Law, F-16s are screaming over the city's airspace like an angry hornet's nest  
and they've just told us not to panic because the authorities have everything under control. What do you think?"

"That we should run away?"

"Too late for that. Every road out is jammed with the traffic. I'll bet the docks and airports are even worse."

"Greg, you are always a shining beacon of optimism."

"I knew there would be days like this. I just didn't think they'd come so damn soon.  
I haven't even started to pay off my loans yet!"

"What about that gizmo you were working on? I mean, maybe it really did come from Jesus."

"It was JS, not Jesus. Don't go all Fundie on me now."

"Whatever. Well? At least tell me my iPod didn't give its life in vain."

"Greg, level with me."

"I dunno. Seriously, I could follow the diagrams to put it together,  
but whoever designed it was either a genius or completely bonkers."

"And? What does it do?"

"Remember Ghostbusters? Something like that."

"We ain't afraid of no ghosts! So pack or trap?"

"I'm hoping trap."

"Well there you go then. How bad could it be?"

"Don't cross the streams."

"...oh."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The recon plane flew over the gridlocked roads as men, women and children abandoned cars, trucks and vans  
to flee on foot with whatever the could carry towards the hope of safety in the city. It passed over broken  
plains where clumps of trees stuck out here and there.

And then it was finally able to see *them*.

Tens of thousands of nubile bodies in irregular clusters that stretched out for miles. Every color of the spectrum  
was on display down there and it was with an effort that the men doing the surveillance swallowed their  
drool instead of panting like dogs in heat.

It was a living sea of T & A.

Large and small, short and long haired, some moving like centauroids, others sliding along like snakes,  
they advanced at a steady pace that seemed to devour the distance like a champion diner at an all you can eat buffet.

They were going to hit the first defense lines sooner then expected.

"Pull us back a bit, but keep us near the front of the main advance.  
Headquarters is going to want us to keep a close eye on them."

The pilot nodded back.

The plane began to swing around in a wide arc towards the direction it had come from.  
The crew took few precautions, confident in the air superiority of their craft  
over the exotic but still land bound creatures below. They could see no guns, no missiles,  
no visible threat to a machine that was miles overhead.

It was an assumption rooted in history and common sense.

It was also a fatal mistake.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

General David Petridish looked grimly at the situation map. Around him the rest of the hastily erected  
headquarters was a madhouse of men and equipment as orders were relayed and reports streamed in.

For the first time in almost two hundred years the American military was about to fight on its home turf  
against an enemy that, if the initial estimates were correct, actually outnumbered them over ten to one.

David stared at the colorful icons as if by sheer will he could change them into something more in his favor.

His forces were heavily understrength in terms of armor and artillery thanks in no small part to the sudden  
destruction of so many critical nodal bases across the nation when the invasion had first begun. Most of the  
Air Force's Raptors had been written off as well, few of the advanced planes had been in places where the monsters  
had not attacked. That left him with mostly older jets and gunships as well as attack helicopters for air support.  
The Marines and Army Reserves had been positioned as the tip of the spear for the battle. He hated having to rely  
on simple infantry for so much, but right now they were his most abundant resource and he had to use what was available.

But Petridish still had the means to fight a conventional battle  
by the book and by God that was exactly what they were going to do.

The general looked up at the waiting men.

"Instruct Alpha, Bravo and Charlie Squadrons to commence bombing runs.  
After they've softened up the enemy for a bit, the troops will advance."

"Yes Sir!"

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"This is Viper One to all Viper Units. Authorization for strike confirmed.  
We are going Weapons Hot. I repeat, All Weapons Hot."

The A-10 Thunderbolts were big and ugly fighters intended for close air support of friendly troops.  
They were designed to demolish slow and hardened ground targets with their heavy gatling cannon,  
bombs and missiles. Their heavy armor allowed them to soak up enormous amounts of punishment  
and multiple redundant systems had been built into them to allow even a heavily damaged Thunderbolt  
to survive long enough to get back to base.

They seemed ideally suited to the role they had been assigned in the battle.

The enemy was relatively slow compared to modern vehicles. Though they seemed to be resistant to small arms fire,  
several thousand rounds of depleted uranium would certainly ruin their day. It would be just like going fishing  
with dynamite. Because everyone knew that although the creatures might resemble human women, they were only  
dumb genetically mutated animal clones or something that the mad scientist Sukebe had designed.

The only thing they had to worry about was running out of ammo before the show was over.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Sergeant Ted Colon studied the field of battle through his binoculars.

There were a jolly well lot of the buggers out there.

Besides the rather pear-shaped non-com, Corporal Jobby Nobbs turned and spat with the ease of someone  
who had dedicated their life to refining bodily expressions into an art form. Though exactly what kind  
of art that was supposed to be was still unknown.

"Bleeding big boobies out there, Fred."

The sergeant lowered his field glasses and turned with a frown to his companion. However this only intensified  
the expression on his face to a grimace as the sight of a Nobbs in uniform tended to make most rational people  
come to the conclusion that either a) they'd been drinking too much or b) they hadn't drunk enough yet.

"How many times do I have to tell you, Knobby? It's Ted! Ted. Not Fred."

"Right, Sarge. And it's Jobby, Sarge."

"Well, the thing is, Nobbs, we're up here all nice and fortified right?  
And they're down there all out in the open for the big bombs to drop down  
on their heads."

"Doesn't seem quite right though. Attacking women, I mean."

Colon rolled his eyes. Nobbs was one of the newer generation of recruits. Though it had taken three independent  
DNA tests to qualify Corporal Jobby as part of it. They lacked the spine _(and perhaps in the case of Nobbs,  
the opposable thumbs)_ to wave the flag proudly as they taught bloody Charlie a thing or two.

"That's because you don't understand things, Knobby."

"Jobby, Sarge."

"Whatever. Now look, the point is that these are not respectable women. They make look like naked women-"

"With really huge gazongas!"

"-naked women, but they are in fact not women. Do you understand, Corporal?"

"Not really, Fred."

"Ted! And that's Sergeant to you," the senior non-com barked.

"Right Sarge."

"Now where was I?"

"Them not being women, Sarge. Even though they got wide round-"

Ted hastily interrupted the young _(and technically speaking if one went by number of appendages on display)_ man,  
before he could display any more visually descriptive enthusiasm.

"Right! Right!! The *point* is, is that's why you and I are out here on the battlefield and the officers  
in charge are nice and safe back at HQ. They know things, you see."

"They do?"

This same as a complete surprise to Corporal Nobbs. In his experience the fancy pants commissioned people  
at the top didn't seem to know anything, especially when they were being grilled by Congress.  
He'd always thought it was the non-commissioned officers who made sure that the military worked.

"Yes, Knobby, they do. Those things don't have the Geneva Conventions on them, you see."

"Jobby, Sarge. But I thought we all get those Genevas?  
They told us in boot camp that you get them no matter what."

"Only if you're an American, Nobbs. That's what is so great about them you see."

"How's that?"

"Well it's like this; When we lock up one of those dirty ragheads, we give them the good old  
one-two-that'll show the bastards we mean business. But when one of our lads gets knocked  
out from behind by those cheating cowards, we gets full immunity because if we don't, we  
kick the snot out of them until they're showing us their rummy yellow bellies."

Jobby cocked his head at an angle as he tried to make sense of that.

"And what happens if they kick the snot out of us instead?"

Sergeant Colon actually looked taken aback by the question.

"Kick the snot out of us? The US military? The biggest combat boots on the corner?! Never will happen! Never!!"

"But what if it does, Sarge?"

"Now see here, Corporal! Stop that kind of thinking at once! Why, it's downright *liberal*!!"

Colon spoke the last word in the tone of voice usually reserved for catching someone  
in the act of trying to milk a dog through the poor animal's ass.

"You mean it's tolerant and generous?"

The Sergeant's retort was drowned out by the sounds of the first strike group  
zooming overhead towards their assigned targets.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Entering Engagement Zone. Begin your runs!!"

The twelve A-10s opened up with everything they had like modern dragons. Gatling gun rounds seared through  
the air as ground attack missiles and 70 mm rockets tore up the strike zone like the jaws of some enormous  
fiery beast.

Bodies and parts of bodies flew everywhere as the helpless creatures railed impotently at their destroyers.

It was a slaughter. The stupid things didn't even have the sense to try and take cover.

The pilots laughed with an almost childlike glee as they witnessed the destruction of such beauty by their own hands.

Now the rest of the attack craft were joining in the fun, some of them even making wagers among themselves  
as to who could accomplish the most interesting trick shot with their cannons.

It was almost..._too easy._

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"General Petridish, great news! The airstrikes are working even better then expected!"

"Excellent. How many of the enemy forces are left?"

"No more then a third of this particular grouping are still standing according to our recon planes.  
They also report that they seem to be verging on the point of panic and could flee at any time."

"Right then, we just need to give them one more push."

The General stared up at the wall. This was happening much faster then he'd expected,  
he'd assumed it might take several days to soften them up for his ground forces to finish them off.

To be sure, they were ready to begin the advance on a moment's notice, but still it was sooner  
then his timetable had called for. But if he didn't take advantage of the situation now and gave  
them time to regroup his casualties could become much worse then if they moved now.

David gave a tiny nod. They would go for it. No guts, no glory.  
They might even have a statue of him after this was all over.

"Okay, gentlemen, let's do it. Activate Operation Cardigan!"

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Corporal Nobbs looked green in the face. Sadly, this tint only improved his features.

"Is war always like this, Sarge?"

Colon nodded a little sadly. Even this bloodbath was more then he'd expected.

"Afraid so, Nobbs. The stupid bastards just never seem to know when to quit."

** "WHAT ARE YOU FOOLS DOING?! WE ARE STARTING OPERATION CARDIGAN!!  
GET READY TO CHARGE STRAIGHT AHEAD AT THE ENEMY!!!"**

There was a Major Donald Rust in every military, every time, everywhere. Or as the troops  
who served under him swore, "God's gift to the enemy, any enemy and a walking advertisement  
for desertion at the first opportunity."

Nobbs stared plaintively at the sandbags and the barricades made of reassuringly solid items,  
it looked a lot more appealing then going out into the open where the enemy was.

"Come on, Nobbs. We have to join the other lads."

"Right, Sarge. Er, Sarge?"

"Hmm? What?"

"Can we advance very, very slowly?"

The senior non-commissioned officer gave his companion a look.

"Exactly how slowly did you have in mind?

The corporal grinned up at him, revealing teeth that would given any orthodontist nightmares for weeks.

"Behind everybody else, Sarge."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The artillery crew laughed and made small chat as they waited for their orders.

Their original mission had been to serve as firesupport for the main defense line,  
but thanks to the jockpants with wings that wasn't an issue anymore. So now they  
waited to see if high command would keep them there to serve as insurance against  
an unexpected counterthrust or deployed them out in the field to join in the rout.

Safe behind the lines, there was no real reason to keep sentries on alert except  
for regulations and everybody knew that it was all for show anyway.

"Hey Charlie! Grab me another thermos of coffee, will ya?"

"Yeah yeah. Those damn pilot pricks are going to be lording  
this one over us ground pounders for months, you know."

"Fuck em!"

"Not without dinner and a movie first!"

There was a general outbreak of bawdy laughter.

They never saw it coming.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The M1 Abrams tanks advanced as the tip of the spear composed of lighter vehicles and marching infantry.

Their job was to crush the enemy into bits small enough for the rest of the forces coming up behind  
them to handle. Their main cannons belched 120 mm HEAT shells as the tight formations closed the distance.

Straight ahead they could see the retreating enemy forces running away from them, though unable to outdistance  
their pursuers due to the many injuries visible even at this distance. It was really stupid of them to stay together  
like that, that just made shooting them that much easier. It was a little strange as well. Most routed forces  
tended to break up into panicked individuals but there was none of that here.

But it probably had to do with being dumb animals. They couldn't think, they couldn't plan  
and when it came down to it, that was why people were superior to all other forms of life.

Now that was odd, they'd stopped retreating. Well, they must be tired after all of that running. And this rather  
broken terrain certainly wasn't easy going, even the tanks were starting to have trouble moving over it.

But this would all over soon....wait a minute.

_What the-_

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The recon plane was the one that spotted it first.

The bodies scattered all over the ground began to shimmer and then vanished in small flickers of light  
like the afterimage of a camera's flash. Then the 'routed' creatures began to disappear as well, leaving  
only a small group of the females in their place.

It took a moment for the men to realize the discrepency in the appearance  
of these to the others that had been there before.

They were wearing...clothes.

And then the ground all around the pursuit forces erupted, in some cases literally right  
next to an individual shocked soldier, as the real Pokewoman force emerged into the light.

"Radio Headquarters-"

An alarm began to blare.

"Sir, we've got multiple unknown radar contacts closing in on us fast at 4 o'clock!"

"What? Where did they come from?"

"I don't know! They were just there all of a sudden!!"

"Get us out of here!!"

"The lead unknowns are increasing speed!! Oh my god, they just hit Mach 2!!"

"Deploy countermeasures, they must be some kind of missile!"

"Deploying Flares and Chaff! It's...not working!! They're coming right at us!!"

"Evade!! Evade!! Evad-"

The plane exploded into a shower of metal and flame.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"General, It's a trap!!"

David Petridish swung his head toward the pale officer like an angry bull before a red flag.

** "WHAT?!"**

"The ground forces...they were ambushed! They're taking heavy casualties. And..."

The man trailed off hesitantly, cowed by the expression on his superior's face.

"Spit it out."

"Sir, the enemy...has air support."

"How the hell did they get planes?"

"They don't have any sir."

"Then where the hell did they get helicopters?"

"They don't have those either, Sir."

"What, Are you going to tell me these things are suddenly flying or something?"

"Actually, that's exactly what they're doing, Sir."

"Are you shitting me?!"

"No Sir!"

The general grabbed his hair and swore violently.

"Order an artillery bombardment and pull the men back!"

"Yes Sir!"

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

_ "-Repeat, Respond!! What are you doing?! The enemy has attacked!! Begin Fire Plan Alpha!!"_

The headset hissed and crackled in the otherwise silent position.

Nothing moved except for the steady trickles of dark red fluid that slowly pooled  
into the shallow depression in the center of the area.

Blank eyes stared up at the well of eternity.

Only a track of bloody footprints marked the path.

As if by magic, they appeared one in front of the other on the ground. Each print turned fainter  
and lighter as less blood was deposited at every step until at last the trail vanished into the  
same emptiness that the killers had emerged from.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Men screamed. They were everywhere. Beautiful and deadly Angels of Death.

Major Rust fired his sidearm at one silver haired female who didn't even seem to notice it  
as she began to glow brightly like a new star and her form expanded out into a monstrous beast  
that was all too familiar to many of the soldiers who had seen the movies.

** "DRAGON!!"**

Nor was it alone. Even as it began to melt one of the tanks with a fiery breath so hot that just looking directly  
at it made the eyes burn, more of the creatures were transforming. Some into other dragons, one into a giantess  
of a woman over forty feet tall who proceeded to squash men under her feet like bugs and still others into strange  
mixtures of women and beasts, plants or machinery.

The major's heart sank as he looked up at those inhuman faces.

What kind of monsters were these things?

Dimly, Donald could hear the shrieks of men throwing away their weapons and running, only to be brought down  
by their faster pursuers. The beasts showed no mercy to anyone they caught, even going so far as to dig out  
the helpless tank crews from their wrecked vehicles to be thrown to the rest of the swarm.

Rust stumbled away, somehow finding himself ignored in the general melee  
as other soldiers were brought down all around him.

It didn't make any sense. The enemy was supposed to run away. It was inconceivable!!

She was waiting for him at edge of the battlefield.

It could have easily passed for a modern human girl if not for the two bony ridges  
on either side of the head that resembled pointed ears or wide horns.

It stared at him with cold eyes, eyes that dismissed him as anything of importance  
after only a moment's glance.

A soldier maddened by fear ran past the staring Major and towards the still figure.

** "DIE! DIE!! DIE!!"**

The man emptied his weapon at the horned girl. There was the sound of bullets  
striking all around her, but not a single shot actually hit her.

There was a horrible wet sound like that of a side of beef being carved up and the soldier's  
arms, legs and head came off like a doll that had been seized by an invisible child that didn't  
know its own strength.

"Damn you!!"

Somehow he knew it was her doing. That abomination was a soulless murderer  
and it had killed one of his men. He raised his gun.

"What in God's name are you?!"

_**'Psidyke.'**_

The word seemed to echo like a shout in Rust's brain.

And then she popped his head like a champagne cork.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The Thunderbolts had been called back to the battle. The no longer smiling pilots  
were furious at having been suckered so easily and they had blood in their eyes.

This time the enemy was going to get what was coming to them.

This time they wouldn't miss.

This time-

_** 'Fire.'**_

Dozens of bluish plasma blasts hit them from below, vaporizing whatever they hit without discrimination.

-they were dead.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"For God's sake Knobby, what are you doing?!"

The portly sergeant was huffing and puffing as he performed that oldest  
of venerable military maneuvers, the strategic speedy withdrawal.

"Just tying my shoes, Sarge."

"what?!"

Ted tried to fit the Corporal's words into something that made sense in the real world and failed.  
Nobbs had been the first person running away the moment all hell had broken loose and from what  
Colon knew of the younger (for lack of a better word) man, he shouldn't have stopped running until  
he was someplace far away from the fighting.

"I've decided to reevaluate the situation, Sarge."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I don't need to outrun all of them, Fred. I just need to keep ahead of you."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"This feels like stealing, Greg."

"For the last time, this isn't theft."

"How's that?"

"I left some money in the front."

"I still don't understand why we're doing this."

"Listen. Do you hear that?"

"Dude, I don't hear a thing."

"Exactly. The fighters have stopped flying over the city."

"But that's a good thing, right?"

"Willing to bet your life on it?"

"Well when you put it that way..."

"See if you can grab the canned stuff on that aisle. We don't want to be here  
when everybody else figures out that it's time to batten down and dig in."

"Where are all the people anyway? It's kinda spooky."

"I don't want to think about it. You shouldn't either."

"Why not?"

"You might guess correctly."

"Oh."

"Let's see, bottled water, jerky, oatmeal, powdered milk...."

"Greg."

"Yeah?"

"I think we have a problem."

"Shit, don't tell me there's people coming."

"It's a bee-girl."

"A what? Have you been tapping that stash of yours again?"

"I'm serious. It's a bee-girl...and it's looking at me, Greg."

"Remember, don't panic. I'll be right there."

"It's coming closer, Greg!"

"I'm coming!"

"Greg! Help!!"

"Don't do anything stupid!!"

"**EAT BUGSPRAY YOU BUGBITCH!!**"

"Oh **SHIT!!**"

-End Prologue Hawks and Doves 


	4. Prologue: Darwin's Revenge

**No Turning Back  
A Pokewomen Universe Story  
by Shade**

Porn with Plot Warning.

Copyrighted character use warning.

Ignoring what a lot of other people wrote warning.

Warning about warning warning warning.

_ "Just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are even stupider!"  
-George Carlin_

** -x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-  
Prologue: Darwin's Revenge  
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-**

"I still can't believe it. You tried to fight with Bugspray! Bugspray!!"

"Dude, it was her or me. Only thing is I was kinda in a rush..."

"And what's even worse is you grabbed the wrong cans and sprayed her instead with fucking air fresheners!"

"Hey! Don't knock it, it worked."

"That's the ***other*** part I can't accept. You knocked her out with Scent-so-fresh 'Flower Delight'!"

"Just get over it already, Greg. How's that trap holding up anyway?"

"Well we're not dead, so it's probably working correctly."

"How did she fit in there anyway?"

"Fuck if I know. I never did pay attention to those damn cartoons with the stupid little electric rats."

"Maybe she's a ghost?"

"Want me to let her out so you can find out?"

"No!"

"Well there you go then. Let's just be get back to our room and lock ourselves in for awhile."

"That's the plan?"

"You got any better ideas? I'm all ears."

"Uh...order out for pizza?"

"Don't make me hurt you."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The President sat at his desk in the Whitehouse.

It was a big desk, a manly desk. The kind of desk that you could pretend  
to be doing something while goofing off.

Damnit, he was supposed to be on vacation! The other stuff could wait!!  
That's why a man had political appointees, to deal with this kind of shit.

Where the hell was Dick when he needed him?

"Mr. President! Are you listening? You have to decide!"

He scowled at the thick set black general standing impatiently in front of him.

They'd had to call old Colon Bowell out of retirement thanks to the losses in senior military personnel  
they'd suffered so far. More importantly, they'd needed men loyal to the man who held office to keep  
certain matters related to the whole mess quiet.

"Fuck it. Just drop the damn nucooler already."

"Are you sure, Mr. President? This is American soil we're talking about here!"

"Fuck em, they didn't vote for me. Dirty Fucking Liberals, let them burn!!"

"But-"

"Hey! Who's the Deciderer here, you or me?"

"You are, Sir."

"Good, now get out of here."

His whole body as rigid as a fireplace poker, the general left to carry out his orders.

The President decided that he needed a good book to take his mind off things.

He pulled the one he always relied on in times of crisis and began to read out loud.

"My Pet Goat..."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"This is Sunflower One. We are approaching Point Zero. ETA is six minutes."

_ "Acknowledged, Sunflower. Eagle One Authorization is confirmed. You are  
to deliver the package with a bow. I repeat, you are to deliver the package  
with a bow."_

"Yes Sir. But-"

_ "Just follow orders, Sunflower. We are at war."_

"Yes Sir."

The pilot looked at his co-pilot and switched off the exterior radio.

"May God forgive us for what we are about to do," he whispered hoarsely.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The State of Illinois had fallen to the advancing hordes.

What few humans remained were those who had hid well and did not attract the attention  
of the main force as it had obliterated any signs of organized resistance and cleared out  
major population centers in the area.

Now the millions of the creatures infested the city of Chicago, consuming all the stored food supplies  
they could find as they prepared for their migration to the next target.

Humanity had learned to its great cost that the invaders were much hardier then any human army,  
able to go for weeks or even months at a time without needing to feed, then gorging themselves  
on the stockpiles of a captured human city until the time of their next attack began.

Now though, most of the beings that would eventually be labeled as 'Pokewomen' dozed during  
the noon heat in the cool shade of the various abandoned buildings.

Few of them noticed the black arrow shape of the stealth bomber as it accelerated overhead.

"The package...is delivered. With a bow on top."

The pilot made the sign of a cross as behind the bomber, a blinding white flash of light erupted  
and instantaneously turned into an expanding ball of billowing yellow and gray destruction.

Thousands of Pokewomen died instantly from the blast and heat effects.

Tens of Thousands...did not.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Dude, the light is blinking. Is that good or bad?"

"I thought you said your iPod's battery had a full charge?!"

"Oops."

"Don't give me that! This is not an 'oops' moment! How could you fucking forget to charge the stupid battery?!"

"It's starting to shake!"

"Don't change the subject! You asshole, I do my best to keep us alive  
and you fuck it all up because you couldn't even check your-"

"Greg, don't look behind you."

"Fuck. She's there, isn't she?"

"Yeah."

"Right, go hide in the closet. No sense in both of us getting killed by your stupidity."

"I'll always remember you, Greg."

"Just shut up before my common sense intervenes and makes me change my mind."

"Going!"

"OKay, now then...Um, we come in peace? Live long and prosper? Baa Weep Granna Weep Ninniban?"

_ "Bzzzzt."_

"Whoa! Hey!! Watch it!! What are you-hey...Uh-_Aaaoooo**wwwhooaa!**_"

"Greg, what's happening?"

"Keep the fucking door closed!!"

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The helicopter slowly circled the ruins of what had once been one of the largest cities in America.

Although the fires had long since burned themselves out, the portrait of destruction was a sobering  
sight to the men and women aboard the craft. Even from this distance it was easy to see where Ground Zero  
had been, an enormous crater in the heart of the city's remains.

"Take us down!"

Dr. Honeydew Bunson gestured to the pilot, his motions muffled by the radiation suit  
he wore along with the rest of his team of specialists.

Cautiously the Nighthawk came to a landing at the outskirts of the city proper.

A few suited up soldiers were the first out, their weapons at the ready as they scanned the area  
for any hostile presence. Although none of the female monsters seemed to be left here after the  
main swarm had departed, they were not taking any chances. The white hot memory of the Diablo Massacre  
was still fresh in every soldier's mind.

As Bunson's crew stepped out into the pale sunlight, they moved with practiced efficiency to remove and set up  
their equipment. One of them was holding up a long rod attached to a readout that he twiddled with intently.

The doctor moved toward his subordinate and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Still no readings, Jackson?"

The man gave little startled jump and then turned carefully towards his boss.

"Not a damn thing, Sir. This geiger counter must be broken, this close  
to the blast site should definitely be registering residual radiation."

Bunson shook his head, which being under his suit's hood, wasn't visible to anyone else.

"No, I don't think it's the equipment. All of the other stations had negative readings too.  
I suspect that mystery is why they dispatched us here in the first place."

"Lucky us."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Greg, you still alive?"

"Define alive."

"I'm gonna open up, okay?"

_ "Uuuuhh."_

"Dude. I mean..._dude._ Dude!!"

"Shut up, she's sleeping."

"Did you-with her-but how-was it-"

"Yes. Yes. None of your fucking business. Make yourself useful and grab me a soda. I can't move my fucking legs."

"I know I told you to pay more attention to girls, Greg. But I didn't mean like that!"

"It's preferable to dying....I think."

"But it's just like Jesus said on that download! Love your enemy!! I mean this is freaking BIG!!"

"Pipe down, will you?"

"But the war is over!! We can stop this whole thing!! We just need to tell everyone!!"

"Dude, think about it. Do you honestly believe that anyone in charge is going to seriously listen to either of us?  
We're from fucking Berkeley! They'll just think we're crazy fucking hippies. And that's if we're lucky. Worst  
case is they'll somehow think we're part of this whole terrorist invasion and just shoot us."

"But we gotta do something! We can't just sit back and watch civilization go down in flames!"

"Didn't say that we were."

"You got a plan?"

"Yep."

"...wait a minute, I know that look."

"What look?"

"Oh shit, this is going to be dangerous, isn't it? And I'm going to end up carrying all of the heavy stuff, aren't I?"

"Well since you volunteered so nicely..."

"Fuck!"

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"What are these things?"

Jerry Jackson tapped experimentally at one of the sparkling spherical crystal formations they'd  
discovered in greater and greater numbers as they'd made their way deeper into the city.

They were about the size of a grapefruit and chimed softly whenever any kind of pressure was applied to them.

Though there were some minor readings on the radiation meter but they seemed harmless enough,  
a person would get more rads thrown at them in a dentist's chair. There seemed to be several  
different varieties of them too. So far the team had identified at least eleven distinct types  
of the crystalized nodules. Color was the most obvious distinguisher. Some were the red and orange  
of fire, while others were the blue of the deep sea and some looked like they had captured the  
rising and setting of the sun on the horizon. There didn't seem to be any pattern to their distribution  
either. They'd found them scattered both in and out of buildings, under rubble and even a few stuck  
inside of broken cars.

"A better question Mr. Jackson would be, where are all the bodies?"

"Dr. Bunson?"

"Even factoring in local weather and scavengers at work there should be remains  
of some kind around. At the very least I would still expect to find bones."

The junior man on the team flushed with embarrassement, grateful for his protective gear concealing his features.

"Yet we have seen no sign of any dead creatures at all, not one. Most intriguing."

"Yes, Doctor," Jackson agreed as it seemed the safest thing to do at the time.

"And then there's these things."

Honeydew gestured towards the ebony stone ovoids that had suddenly come into view as the team crossed  
a crumbled city block. There were hundreds of them and those were just the ones they could see.  
Jackson suddenly knew in his heart that there must be thousands more just like them scattered around the city.

"My God, they're huge."

Too smooth and perfect to have formed naturally, they simply rested there like ancient watchful monoliths.

They creeped Jerry out. It was nothing scientific, just that ancient tingle in the spine inherited from  
a thousand generations of small warm animals that had been trying to avoid becoming something else's dinner.

They reminded him of giant..._eggs_.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Dawn was coming.

The refugees were still fleeing for the mountains and the light would catch them still out in the open  
when the Swarm came. The Self Defense Forces had already pulled back, trying desperately to defend what  
they could, even if it meant abandoning thousands of others to their fate.

Two figures sat on an empty street curb near the outskirts of Nerima, quietly smoking.

One was small and shriveled, his body round as an oversized melon left too long in the sun.  
He wore a worn and dirty gi and smoked a thin pipe with small quiet puffs of pale white smoke.

The other was a rather heavyset man in a slightly cleaner though no less faded white martial arts gi.  
The top of his head was covered in a hankerchief and a pair of slightly crooked thin glasses fell  
over his eyes as he puffed on a cheap thin brown cigarette.

Finally, the smaller of them spoke.

"I'm surprised to see you here, would have thought you'd gone off with Soun and that daughter of his."

His companion stiffened slightly.

"I am many things, Master. But there are some things even I will fight for."

"Hmph, at least I trained one of you fools correctly. Having to rely on the generosity  
of that Kuno buffoon for safety is below even the likes of me."

"And yet here you are, Master."

The small old man pulled his pipe out of his mouth and tapped it thoughtfully.

"There are a lot of little kids behind us. Some of them used to call me Santa."

"I remember them."

The small figure coughed uncomfortably.

"Plus all those pretty little things with the cute underwear."

The thickset man quickly smothered a grin.

"Of course, Master."

"Besides, there are worse ways to die then upholding the Principles of the Art."

Soft footsteps sounded behind them.

The larger man raised his head slightly, recognizing the rhythm.

"You shouldn't be here, Nodoka."

The kimono clad woman bowed her head slightly. The wrapped bundle over her shoulder rustled softly.

"A wife's place is at her husband's side."

Genma met his wife's eyes squarely for the first time in a very long time.

"I do not deserve it."

She only smiled softly at him.

"I give it to you anyway."

Her hand closed over his and gave it a brief squeeze.

"My wife, I wish-"

A smooth finger over his lips stopped him.

"I know, my husband."

She kissed him tenderly, a bittersweet taste of all that had been lost, all that might have been.

"I have never been prouder of you then at this moment, my love."

The little old man looked away from the pair, actually feeling his cheeks burn with embarrassment  
at witnessing this private moment. He had never felt his age as much as he did right now.

More footsteps were coming. And the steady sound of a wooden cane bouncing on cement.

"Well Happi, fancy finding you here."

"And what are you doing here? I thought you'd be heading for your village by now."

"One more old woman will not make a difference there."

Happosai snorted rudely.

"Pull the other one, it's got bells on."

"Aid has already been dispatched to them. If anyone can make a difference, they will."

The young man beside her spoke up for the first time. He would have been considered a handsome boy  
if not for the many scars on his exposed face and neck and the long white sleeve that hung down  
emptily at his left side.

He nodded at Genma respectfully.

"Herb owed him a debt of honor."

The bald man felt wetness building at the corners of his eyes. Yes, the boy would have done  
something like that too. If only he could see him one last time....

"Boy, you don't have to be here."

Happosai gestured towards the mountains.

"I can still fight."

The tone was soft, but there was steel underneath there.

"Why? You don't owe anyone here anything. This isn't your home, what do you have to fight for?"

The little old martial artist stated it bluntly, his beady eyes never leaving the boy's scarred face.

"I made a promise. I will not die until I have fullfilled it."

Their gazes met and held for a long moment. Then Happosai broke the contact and turned away.

"Suit yourself, boy."

"I will fight too."

Genma's jaw dropped. This had been the last thing he'd expected.

"Kasumi?! What are you doing here?! You belong with your family!!"

Surprisingly it was Mousse who recovered and shouted first.

"I have no family."

The words were level, precise and empty of all emotion.

"But your father, your sister. Kasumi dear-"

"They are no family of mine. They are Kunos now and Kunos they shall be forever more."

Nodoka had never seen such deeply smoldering rage in those gentle eyes before.

She never wanted to see it again.

"Kasumi Tendo! You-"

She slapped the scarred young man hard across the face.  
It barely hurt but the sheer shock of the act struck him speechless.

"And ***you*** need someone to watch your back."

Cologne muffled her chuckle in the sleeve of her robe. No matter how long you lived,  
life still managed to find ways to surprise you.

The sun broke fully over the horizon.

Every head snapped towards the sound of thousands of feet and the buzz of hundreds of wings in motion.  
Genma tossed the butt of his cigarette away and Happosai emptied the coal in his pipe.

They were coming.

Genma's heart sank as the true numbers of the enemy finally became apparent.

"Remember who you are. Remember what lies behind us."

Happosai's voice was so cool and composed that he might as well have been commenting on the weather.

Genma closed his eyes, letting the fear rise up and pass through him, leaving him an empty vessel  
of calm that awaited only the rhythm of the Art to fill it once again.

He opened his eyes.

_ 'My Son. I will not dishonor your memory. This time, this promise I will keep...'_

And then they were upon them.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

She panted for breath. Each gasp of air seared her aching lungs as her body trembled uncontrollably.

Free! She was free at last!

Slowly the woman got to her feet, ignoring the mud and other stains on her dull gray clothing.

She knew she had to keep moving, those *things* were still in the area.

All she had were her clothes, a bloody wrench and her wits.

But that had been enough for Nabiki to escape.

She almost snarled when the window to an abandoned shop gave her a glimpse of her own reflection.

Prison had not been kind to the middle Tendo daughter. For all her scheming and conniving she had been  
relatively innocent in at least the technical aspect before her incarceration. Like everything else that  
had been a valuable commodity to her, one to be transacted at a lucrative profit. Nabiki had had plans,  
grand plans for the future. She had envisioned rising to power as the ruler behind the throne at her husband's  
side, enjoying all of the benefits of power while avoiding the tedious responsibilities that came with it.

All of that was gone now. She had learned quickly that girls like her were considered the bottom of the food chain  
by both the older, more experienced inmates as well as the guards themselves. It had been a dearly learned lesson.  
The face that looked back at her was worn and looked much older then she knew she actually was. There were no scars  
visible though, her tormentors had made sure to place those where they were not so easily revealed.

But she was still alive and all of them were either dead or dragged off by those overbalanced insect women that  
had attacked the facility. She didn't know what the monsters wanted with them and frankly she could have cared  
less, though she did hope it was slow and horrible. They deserved it.

When she found a likely looking place it was almost too simple to break into the small home from the back.

The owners had departed in haste, but left precious little behind. Empty drawers and open closets dashed  
her hopes for getting out of her prison garb. But there was still running water in the taps  
and some food in the pantry.

She could rest here while she planned her next move.

A frantic knocking on the front door made her jump.

"Please! My baby!! Please let us in!!"

The woman's voice was frantic with desperation.

It made a light click on in Nabiki's head.

She unlocked the door and opened it to see a young woman with a softly wailing bundle held protectively in her arms.

"Thank you! Oh thank you!!"

The young mother almost collapsed as soon as she was inside,  
exhaustion visible in every line on her otherwise pretty face.

Nabiki eyed the woman thoughtfully as she caught her breath. She was close to the Tendo's size  
and her features similar enough to pass at a distance. It seemed the gods were smiling on her today.

"What's your name," She asked conversationally.

"Megumi Ikari. Oh thank you, we got seperated from my husband and then those things were everywhere!"

"And the baby?"

"Shoji," she cooed at the fussing baby, "Don't worry dear, everything's all right now. Mommy is here."

"He's a handsome boy."

"Yes, everyone says he looks just like his father. We were supposed to go to the evacuation point  
over by the river. I have our passes and everything. I know we'll find each other when we get there."

Megumi was totally engrossed with calming the still whimpering boy. She was bent down with her back  
to Nabiki and didn't see the expression that came over the other woman's face.

"I'm sure you won't have to worry about that," Nabiki Tendo said as she slowly reached for the wrench....

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Sir, I don't think that's such a good idea."

"Nonsense Jackson, how do you expect to learn anything without taking samples?"

Honeydew frowned at the lack of scientific enthusiasm from the young man.  
Really, the younger generation these days just lacked the spirit of discovery.

Why look at his assistant Miss Cantaloupe, she was doing a fine job collecting specimens  
of those intriguing crystal spheres. The woman was a great asset to the team and a joy  
to watch even covered as she was by the bulky mass of the suit which did its best to mask  
her undeniably feminine shape.

Dr. Bunson turned back to his own task. He readied the chisel  
against the large smooth dark ovoid and swung the hammer back.

One good tap should do it.

Jerry had a sudden horrible premonition of disaster. The sheer wrongness in the air screamed so silently  
that all other sound seemed to be sucked into the unnatural quiet as the professor's arm went back.

Jackson's feet, bypassing his brain with an emergency veto, took off  
and dragged the rest of him with them in the direction of the chopper.

Suited heads turned in puzzlement towards his strange departure.

Some of them were even getting ready to call out to him when the hammer connected.

It was like striking a temple gong. The vibrations echoed inside their bones  
and made more then one person fall to their knees clutching at their ears.

** *crack***

The black solid surface began to fracture in a regular geometric pattern around the area where  
the doctor's blow had landed. Bits of dark material began to flake off as the whole structure  
began to shake like it was experiencing an earthquake.

The cracks grew deeper.

"Fascinating..."

Against all expectations of common sense, Honeydew leaned closer for a better look of the phenomenon.

He was rewarded by a shapely hand bursting through the shell and seizing hold of his faceplate.

With a startled shriek the doctor tried to pull himself away only to find that his efforts were futile.

Dark stony material exploded outward as a figure stepped out of the hollow interior,  
still holding the straining scientist by one slender arm without the slightest sign of effort.

She was beyond beautiful, long scarlet hair that shimmered like a living flame, a figure that made  
supermodels look like dried up twigs and pouting lips that promised heaven on earth. She radiated  
raw sexuality so powerfully that the soldiers that had been training their weapons on her found their  
arms going slack as the blood rushed out of their brains and into their pants.

Dr. Bunson found his mind had gone blank. All he could see were those perfect breasts, barely concealed  
over the nipples by a thin fabric that molded to her form like a second skin. Her wings were like those  
of a bat, dark and sleek, curling up behind her back like a dark living cape.

Her green eyes glowed like precious gems, searing into his bedazzled brain.

Her slim fingers tore off his suit's protective hood like a paper bag.

So entranced was the doctor by the allure of her seductive face that he didn't even notice,  
all he realized was that her lips were approaching his and he wanted her so badly  
that he could taste it.

He didn't even care about the small wings on her head.

And then she kissed him with a hunger beyond comprehension.

It was glorious.

For all of three seconds.

Then Honeydew's body began to jerk as his skin seemed to wither and age a century in a heartbeat.  
The brown hair on his head turned to a dull white and began to fall out. His arms and legs spasmed  
in a desperate attempt to escape, but to no avail. The lovely creature held on to his now smoking form  
as it writhed and shrank until with a final soft wail the dried up mummy of parchment skin and blackened  
bones crumbled into dust.

And as the being stepped over the remains of the late Dr. Bunson,  
she laughed with a voice like the first day of summer.

Horrified, the rest of the team finally broke out of their trance and began to move.

** *crack* *crack* *crack***

Only to freeze up as all around them the sounds of the other chrysalises  
beginning to release their contents chimed through the air.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Dude, are you sure about this?"

"Hey, no complaining now. You were the one who wanted to save the world."

"But this shit weighs a fucking ton!"

"It's supposed to."

"Can't she carry any of it?"

"Why don't you go ask her?"

**_ "Buzzz?"_**

_ "Uhhhh...."_

"Just quit your bitching, it shouldn't be too much farther anyway."

"We're not gonna go to prison for this, are we? I mean,  
isn't breaking into a building like this some kind of felony?"

"Nah, not a chance of jail time. For the kind of shit we're about to pull,  
they just shoot people and get rid of the bodies afterwards."

"You've got to be fucking shitting me! I don't wanna get capped by no CIA spook squad!"

"CIA? Don't be stupid. Those jerkoffs couldn't find their cocks in a fucking chicken farm.  
This is NSA turf, Section Nine."

"And this is supposed to make me feel better, how exactly?"

"I thought you liked X-files?"

"Liked, yes. Becoming one is another story!

""Keep it down. I think we're close enough now. You can put the stuff down."

"Finally! What the fuck did you put in there anyway? Lead weights?"

"Bitch bitch bitch. Keep an eye out, will ya?"

"The fuck?_ 'Greg's Kit: For use in case of Alien invasion, WW III or the total collapse  
of Civilization through Human Stupidity'_? You had something like that stashed under your bed?!"

"Exhibit A, our current situation. I rest my case."

"Well yeah, but..."

"Here, suit up."

"Is that a bulletproof vest?!"

"No, it's a stormtrooper costume designed by somebody who was color blind.  
Of course it's a fucking vest. Now put it on."

"What the hell does yours say on the back? _'Pacifism only means that  
I won't kill you....I'm still going to hurt you'_...dude that is seriously fucked up."

**_ "Buzzz?"_**

"Down girl. Here's another lollipop for you."

_** "Buzz!!"**_

"Dude, are those fucking grenades!?"

"Flashbangs. Careful, we do ***not*** want these babies going off prematurely."

"What the hell? A fire extinguisher? You had me carry a **_fucking fire extinguisher?!_**"

"Of course not. You know me better then that. I had you carry two."

"Where the fuck did you get all this shit anyway? Military Industrial Complex surplus?"

"Remember Tracy?"

"You mean that foxy blonde you were tutoring the year before last?"

"That's the one."

"She some kind of survivalist?"

"Nah. French Foreign Intelligence."

"What?!"

"You'd be amazed how many other countries think Berkeley is the place to be for learning about Americans."

"You're kidding me. You mean that cute gal Shirley was..."

"MI-6."

"And that exchange student Jill?"

"KGB."

"Even that quiet bookworm you were dating for a little? What was her name again, Tracy?"

"Yeah, Mossad. Very good at chess too."

"So why did all of them hang around you?"

"I didn't try to get into their pants at every opportunity. I think they were either impressed or confused."

"Come on. Time to do some law breaking."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

_ "Please stand back! Women and children will board first!! Please have your passes out and ready!!  
Do not push! There are enough boats for everyone!!"_

The woman and her infant attracted little attention from the harried officials. She quietly made her way  
with the small crying bundle in her arms to the ramp leading to the evacuation transports.

A disheveled police officer merely glanced at the photo on the official documents before waving  
her through the barrier blocking many other desperate figures trying to argue and shout their way  
past the living line of plastic riot shields and batons.

As the woman stepped on board a frazzled ship's officer came up with a clipboard and collected her pass.

"Name please, Miss. Oh, I'm sorry, didn't mean to wake the baby..."

"Oh that's alright. He just wants his bottle. I was hoping to find one when I got on board."

"There's a place set up for the younger ones, Miss. I just need to get your name down on the passenger list."

She smiled at him.

"Ikari. Nabiki Ikari. And my son...Shinji."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Jackson frantically twiddled with the receiver on the chopper's communications gear. The Blackhawk had taken off  
almost as soon has he'd gotten on board, the pilots having already deduced that staying was not an option conductive  
to long term survival as the entire city came alive with the emergence of thousands of females who could only be  
described as devilish and dark in both nature and appearence.

The young man spared a brief prayer for the rest of the doomed team that had been left behind.

Those shells, that must be how those things had survived the nuke, but how was that possible?  
The blast and radiation released should have wiped out everything. According to all of the laws  
of physics those creatures couldn't be there.

And yet...there they were.

He gaped at window by his seat as some of them sprouted wings like a bat or...a demon. No, that was only superstition.  
Demons did not exist. But his eyes kept insisting that they were flying, even though the mass/lift ratio for their  
wings was-

The chopper rocked as it was hit from below.

Jerry knocked his head on the side, making lights flash in front of his eyes as the hard metal bounced him backwards.

They were shooting fireballs at them.

_"-Respond, Dr. Bunson! Repeat, what is that status of your team? We are detecting large amounts of activity in your area-"_

Jackson grabbed onto the receiver like drowning man tossed a life preserver.

"They're dead! The whole team is gone!! I'm the only one left!! They're everywhere!!"

_"Who is this? Where is Doctor-"_

"He's dead! Those things, the nuke didn't kill them! They were in the wreckage....big black balls!!"

_"What the hell? Sir, have you been drinking?"_

But Jerry wasn't listening. His attention was on the smiling batwinged dark young woman easily keeping pace  
with the damaged Blackhawk despite the crew's best efforts to lose it. Her hands were cupped together,  
a blue green charge gradually building between them.

And then at last the comprehension of their true nature dawned on him  
as the final piece of the puzzle clicked into place.

**_"....oh my god."_**

It was so simple. So obvious. Dr. Sukebe was a genius.

"Listen to me!! You have to tell the Pentagon, don't use another nuclear weapon!!"

_"Look you-"_

"Goddamn it! You have to tell them not to use any more nukes!! These things, they'll-"

_"Sir, this is a restricted channel, I'm afraid I will have to ask you to-"_

Jackson was almost screaming from the frustration. Didn't they understand?

"Don't use the nukes!! Tell them!! Don't use the nukes!!"

The transmission cut off.

Jerry stared at the equipment in disbelief.

Then, almost against his will, he looked out the window.

The last thing he saw was the flash of blue.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Dude."

"I know. Looks like I had you carry the crowbar for nothing."

"Dude!!"

"Watch the glass. Double paned bullet resistant...damn, looks like whatever hit it didn't even slow down."

"Where's all the security? I thought a place like this would be crawling with guards."

"I think you just stepped on one of them."

"Oh shit!!"

"I think you just stepped in that too."

"What?! Oh man! I'm never going to get the smell out!!"

"Looks like they tried to make a stand here."

"Doesn't look like it did them any good."

"I suppose their training didn't cover what to do when they burst out of the wall behind you."

"Hey, there's a gun over here...awww man, it's busted."

"They're all broken. And the ammo clips are crushed."

"You think anybody survived?"

"From the looks of it, I'd have to say....no."

"Dude, is that guy's legs hanging out of the ceiling?!"

"I'd be more concerned about the ones sticking out of the walls."

"Where's his face?!"

"I think it's stuck on the ceiling....yep, there it is."

"How the hell can you be so calm about this?!"

"What good would it do to panic?"

"But what if whatever did that is still here?"

"We run away."

"That's it?"

"Yep."

"And then what?"

"Keep running until we think of something better to do."

"Come on, looks like the consoles on this floor are trashed. We'll check  
the basement next, we should find what we're looking for there."

"And what exactly is it we're looking for? What is the big plan anyway?  
You didn't exactly stop to explain before we came here."

"Ever heard of Operation Predator?"

"No...wait, yeah! That was that old thing where the government was trying to illegally spy on us or something, right?"

"Close enough. Total intergrated data mining on all electronic forms of communication going in or out of the USA."

"But didn't Congress shut that down before they could do it?"

"Since when have the people who always know what's best for us ever listened to anyone else?"

"Dude...but how does that help us?"

"Well the thing is, it works both ways. In order for them to get into all the networks  
they had to actually attach their own physical lines into every node point.  
And being the paranoid bastards that they are, they spliced into *everything*."

"Which means what exactly?"

"It means that if the equipment here is still intact, we are about to get direct access  
to just about every major power player in the world."

"Dude, are you serious?! But...how the hell do you know about all this?"

"Remember Kimberly?"

"That stuck up bitch?! Don't tell me she was-"

"Nah, she was just a political appointee. Her daddy had some pretty big pull with the big boys in charge."

"Dude, she hated your guts. How did you get anything out of her?"

"I didn't."

"But then how?"

"Remember when she lost that laptop?"

"Oh yeah, that was right before she transferred to Siberia on that exchange program.  
Didn't she accuse you of stealing it? Wait a minute...you didn't?!"

"Of course not, that neo-conservative airhead just forgot it in the library.  
Probably got overwhelmed by her first time among that many books without pictures in them."

"But..."

"By the time I found it, she was already gone and good riddance."

"....that wasn't an exchange program, was it?"

"Nope. I don't think daddy's patronage extended quite far enough to cover  
losing a government laptop chock full of interesting goodies."

"But didn't they send anyone to look for it?"

"In Berkeley?"

"Oh, right. But then why didn't you use it as evidence against the assholes in office,  
I mean you don't like them any more then I do, dude."

"Berkeley."

"Oh, yeah. Right. But you could have at least told me! Aren't we best buds?"

"And how well can you keep a secret?"

"Dude, now that's just hitting below the belt."

_** "Buzz? Buzz."**_

"Oh not you too."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Pyongyang burned.

The Chairman of the National Defence Commission laughed bitterly as he watched the fires  
consuming the city outside of his last remaining fortress. Those creatures had crushed  
the hated South in record time. But then they had doubled back and hit the Demilitarized  
Zone in full force. The defenses had held them off for a time, but there had simply been  
too many of them in the end. Now the Fatherland had fallen and all that was left was  
to ensure that the rest of the world burned with it.

The missiles were prepping even now, his loyal soldiers preparing for North Korea's finest hour.

He knew the truth. These things were not the creations of some madman, they were Evil American Weapons  
built solely to overthrow Dear Leader! But he would have the last laugh over the decadent West  
and their unnatural boobies!!

"Launch the warheads!!"

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Sir! Picking up a hot spot in North Korea!"

"Oh shit. Confirmation?"

"Spy in the sky confirms ballistic missile launch. Contents are glowing white."

"Fuck! That insane asshole!!"

"Sir?"

"You know what to do. Alert the President. Then contact whatever we've got left  
in the area and tell them the balloon has just gone up."

"Yes, Sir."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

_"Oh Dear Leader, Eternal President for Life, We will sing of your glory!"_

The last leader of North Korea drunkenly toasted the trail of flames climbing the sky.

Then he paused in his singing and squinted upwards as the sounds of  
gunfire and mortars firing around the building rattled the windows.

Strange, it didn't seem to be getting smaller anymore...

In fact...no, it was not his imagination, it was getting...bigger?!

He opened his mouth, to swear, to scream or to curse the subcontractors he'd had shot instead of paid off.

And then the warhead detonated.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Once again hundreds of Pokewoman died instantly as they were caught directly in the blast  
of an unrestrained nuclear reaction.

But they were only a small minority. Thousands of their sisters survived  
and would soon awaken stronger and more powerful then before.

As the mushroom cloud billowed into the sky, a small piece of warped and melted plastic spun through the air.

If there been any aeronautical engineers around, they might have been able to identify it  
as belonging to a booster rocket. And if someone had been able to look at it close enough they  
might even have been able to read the writing on it, _"Made in the USA"_.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Testing, Testing. One, two, three."

"How's it look?"

Well, they didn't get down here. The equipment is a little dated but still working. And we've got power."

"Think it'll work?"

"Honestly?"

"Yeah. What are the odds?"

"Lousy. But like you said, we have to try."

"Let's do it then."

"Right, just remember to be ready to run away very, very fast."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Mr. President, the phone is ringing."

"So? Get'em on voice maido."

"No Mr. President, it's ***that*** phone. The special one."

"Whazzat?"

"Sir, have you been drinking?"

"Jus' a bittle."

"Sir, the American people need you!"

"Fuck em!"

"Mr. President!"

"Sall right. I'll listen to Pukein."

"Putin, Sir."

"Whatevah."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Wha' da ya want, Pukein?"

_ "Dude, is that..."_

"Quiet."

"Oh, right."

"No, this is not Putin. Please listen, this information is vital to stopping the violence-"

"Look asshole, where the fuck is Pukein? Put em on!"

"Mr. Presi-"

"I get it, you've covered your ass, now put the fucking Russian shithead on the phone!"

"Look, this is a matter of life and death!"

"You sound like one of those dirty fucking hippies! What are you, some kind of Commie Pinko Queer?"

_"Fuck it already. I tried."_

"Yeah, yo mama you Red Commie Bastard!"

** "Hey Asshole, yeah you fucking cocksucking bastard, my friend was trying to help you save the country,  
you stuck up son of a bitch!! You know I never voted for you and I've never been more grateful  
about that then right now!! You can go and fucking die because you're a fucking jackass  
and my only regret is all the other people you got killed won't get a chance to shove  
it right up your lazy fat white ass!!"**

"Why you! I am-"

** *click***

"Dude."

"Sorry, Greg, but he just pissed me off. I can't believe that asshole is in charge of anything."

"I told you so."

"Now what? Try somebody else?"

"The only other person on that line is the Russian. You want to try the Truce of the Bear?"

"What about the other guys? The Brits, the Frogs, the Aussies? Hell, I'd even settle for China."

"Already tried that. None of them is picking up. Wouldn't surprise me  
if they're already moving to more secure locations due to the attacks."

"Then what can we do?"

"We forget the nice approach and just shove it in whether they want it or not."

"Won't that piss a lot of people off?"

"Probably. Which is why we are going to run away very fast once I set it up on automatic."

"And where are we supposed to run to?"

"Leave that to me."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The President of the United States glared at the old style red phone.

That Liberal Russian Son of a Bitch had hung up on him!

"Mr. President! We have to evacuate immediately, the National Guard  
has just reported that the monster is heading in this direction!!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming! Don't you rush me. I'm the commander!! I'm the Deciderer!!"

'Yes, Sir. Please hurry, Sir. The limo is already ready to go."

As they hurried towards the garage the abandoned television in the waiting room  
continued to blare the emergency news report update on its flashing screen.

_ 'This is Miranda Veracruz de la Jolla Cardenal, reporting to you live here at the outskirts  
of the District of Colombia where a giant figure has been seen heading towards the nation's capital.'_

'The military has urged the citizens of the district not to panic and please evacuate in  
a calm and orderly fashion. Sources inside the Pentagon assure us that matters are under  
control and that this monstrous creation allegedly by the infamous Terrorist Mastermind  
Doctor Jim Sukebe will be put down through precision targeting and patriotic determination.'

'Ma'am you can't be here. All civilians must evacuate the area.'

'This is a free press, you can't censor the news!'

'We damn well can, Miss.'

'Ohmygod! Look at the size of those tits!!'

'Cover the camera! Cover the Camera!! Do you want the network to get sued?'

'What's it doing?'

'It's-**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH-**'

Washington DC had a population of over one million people.

There were no survivors.

** -End Prologue Darwin's Revenge**


	5. Prologue: A Sky Full of Stars

**No Turning Back  
A Pokewomen Universe Story  
by Shade**

Porn with Plot Warning.

Copyrighted character use warning.

Ignoring what a lot of other people wrote warning.

Warning about warning warning warning.

_"It is said that the future is always born in pain. The history of war is the history of pain.  
If we are wise, what is born of that pain matures into the promise of a better world,  
because we learn that we can no longer afford the mistakes of the past."  
-G'Kar_

**-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-  
Prologue: A Sky Full of Stars  
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-**

They materialized in a flash of silver radiance onto the cold dry ground of the desert.  
Above them the sky was a dome of velvet darkness broken only by the faint twinkling  
of the little lights in the heavens.

There were nine of them. Six wore a bright green leather armor that had been augmented  
with additional protective metal plates for the chest and shoulders. The white cloth  
of their skirts was cut high up on the thigh, exposing much of their smooth bare legs  
in a manner similar to a chinese dress. Their long golden hair was tied back in a simple  
braid that hung down their backs. The top of their heads were each covered by a red metal  
cap embroidered in gold with two small white feathered wings sticking out from the sides.  
Green eyes the color of polished precious gems took in their surroundings in an instant.  
In a perfectly syncronized motion they drew the long straight swords from the scabbards  
they wore at their sides and stepped out in a defensive circle around the center while with  
their other arm each figure raised a small round banded metal shield of green and gold.

They were Valkyries, the elite warriors of the Heaven's Legion. Their proficiency in combat  
and their haunting beauty had caused the humans they fought to dub them 'Gatherers of the Slain',  
after the old Norse Tales of the legendary creatures who brought death and victory to the battlefield.

For in this war, Sukebe's War, they did both.

"My Lady, we have arrived at the Sacred Grounds."

The two females who stood at either side looked almost completely human. Only the small white horns  
shaped almost like cat ears on their heads gave their true nature away. The one who had spoken was  
of average height with long bright pink hair and pale ivory skin. The other was short and petite,  
with short amethyst hair that had been trimmed in a pageboy cut.

"Thank you, Kaede."

The voice that answered her was melodic and sweet like nectar collected among the morning dew.  
Shimmering silken hair like liquid starlight flowed over her shoulders and down the tall  
straight back. Her armor was to the Valkyrie's as gold was to mud. The fine metal links  
glimmered like the very essence of silver itself and chimed with the soft melody of  
ethereal bells at even the slightest motion. The woman's face was a timeless beauty,  
the warmth in her eyes easing tensions just by looking at them.

She was Verdandi, known as the legendary _'Reaper of Souls'_ and the commanding general of the Heaven's Legion.  
Of the twenty seven armies that battled the human race, her legion was feared above all others.  
Even the legendary cruelty of Karasuba the Black's forces came in a distant second to the ruthless  
efficiency of the undefeated Reaper of Souls.

"It makes you uneasy being here, does it not?"

The Psidyke bowed her head in deference.

"Yes, My Lady. The earth...it echoes with their screams."

The smaller girl nodded in silent agreement as well, tears pooling at the corners of her large eyes.

"Even Nana can sense it. After all this time the torture and murder of our sisters  
still resonates here like a raw wound that will not heal."

"I understand. But we must go to Chambers of Life."

"Yes, My Lady."

The Valkyries fell into a triangular escort formation as the party  
began to advance towards the ruins of an American base.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

General Renee St Clair wished longingly for a cigarette as she looked  
out from her command post towards the broken remains of the Eiffel Tower.

Old habits died hard. Tobacco hadn't been available since the third year of the War.

She also wished as she almost always did these days that she was not the ranking officer  
and effectively the last commander in charge of the defenses of one of Mankind's  
last remaining holding points in Western Europe. The responsibility of having to decide  
who lived and who died was a horrible burden that nothing could have prepared her for.

She had been only a lieutenant at the beginning of the War, but the horrific casualties  
of the last ten years of fighting had bumped her up as essentially the most senior officer  
left of the makeshift amalgamation of British, European Union and Russian forces.

France and most of the EU with the exception of Germany had gotten off lightly during the opening phases  
of the War. The main concentrations of the Swarms as they had been called at the time had been in  
North and Central America, Germany and the former Eastern Bloc, the Pacific Islands, Korea, Okinawa,  
Thailand, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen. Despite the initial devastating attacks against the Americans  
and their regional allies the other nations of the world had been far too slow to grasp the full extent  
of the threat that they all faced. As refugees from the collapsing USA fled into Canada and Mexico,  
the leaders of the Russian and Chinese militaries had been quick to announce that they would succeed where  
the incompetent Americans had failed.

They had paid dearly for their arrogance.

In the end, not even resorting to the desperate tactic of limited nuclear strikes and nuclear artillery shells  
had stopped the legions of 'Pokewomen' from overrunning virtually all of China. Over a billion people had perished  
in that conflict and that had been only a single front of the war that stretched across the entire world.

Russia had initially enjoyed a slight advantage as their army was slowly driven back into a defensive stance.  
They were used to this kind of fighting, falling back slowly to draw the enemy into the trap of their country's  
natural climate and terrain. Their leaders had calculated that like the last fool who'd tried to invade them,  
they needed to only wait for the cruel bite of the Russian winter to settle in before launching a counterattack  
that would crush the enemy before them.

To their horror, they learned far too late that the enemy they had faced on more or less equal terms during  
the unusually warm summer and fall had been looking forward to a change in seasons as well. In the end barely  
a tenth of the Russian forces had managed to escape the final onslaught as the fragile looking females unaffected  
by subzero temperatures closed around the last remaining strongholds like a steel vise.

Australia had been a beacon of hope for the first few years of the war. Untouched by the invading hordes it had  
seemed a natural rallying point to the majority of the remaining military forces in that part of the world.  
With the wide ocean and a sizable armada of the remaining major naval forces in the Pacific it had seemed  
the safest place remaining. They had even began using the country as a springboard for launching counterattacks  
against the suddenly quiescent enemy in Southern China and India.

But then the candle that had burned so brightly as the darkness swept in was extinguished in Seven Days of Fire.

Despite repeated attempts to reestablish contact, no signals had been detected from that small continent in five years.

One by one the other holdouts on the ever shrinking list had fallen until at last, ten years to the day  
that this accursed war had begun, there were only nine major fortified regions where humanity still clung  
to existence with broken bleeding fingers at the edge of the abyss.

And each one of them was surrounded by no less then three armies of the varied races labeled as Pokewomen.

Renee St Clair knew that this was the end. Not just of Paris, not merely of France,  
but the extinction of humanity itself. Their crumbling overstretched defenses would  
not hold against any kind of real assault that armies of those size could throw at it.

_"Rage, rage against the dying of the light."_

Silently Clair blessed whoever it was that had sent them the information at the beginning of the War  
that had allowed them to last even this long. Without that vital transmission, mankind would never  
have stood a chance at all. And even as they stood in the twilight of their species, humanity was  
prepared to take a good sized chunk out of their destroyers right down with them.

The T-virus had infected a third of the human race right before the start of the War. Nicknamed the 'Tits Virus',  
it had caused flu-like symptoms and a swelling of the breasts in both men and women. Nobody had thought anything  
more of it, until the babies. Only when thousands of women began to bear 'Pokegirls' instead of normal children  
did they discover the more sinister effects of the now dubbed 'Tao-gene'. India and China had begun record numbers  
of abortions and infanticides to stop the 'invasion from within'. But some had listened to the transmission  
that warned of what was to come and had shown kindness and mercy to those helpless innocents instead.

The fruits of that decision now stood on the frontlines with the humans instead of against them.

They had grown many times faster then any human child and at an age where their normal siblings  
and playmates would still be in school in normal times, they were already entering adulthood.

"If only we had more time..." the general lamented.

But time had run out.

Soon Dawn would come. And when the first light brightened the horizon, the Last Battle of the Line would begin.

_"Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,  
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,  
Do not go gentle into that good night."_

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The Valkyries were uneasy as they stepped cautiously through the empty dark corridor.  
Their bodies glowed with a faint inner light that provided just enough illumination  
for their own superb nightvision to guide them through the dusty metal and tile.

"_Widow_," muttered Kaede.

The others tensed as the desiccated remains came into view. Even in death the mummified  
remains looked threatening. All of the traces of the horror's presence were old,  
but that only increased the escort's vigilance.

There were bones everywhere. Mainly human, the torn uniforms still identifiable on some of them.  
But here and there among the debris were smaller, more elegant bones and skulls.

Nana whimpered softly.

"Papa? Papa?"

The other Psidyke shushed her softly, patting the smaller girl's head with one hand.

Past the chamber of horror there was yet another wrecked corridor. This one felt all  
too familiar to Kaede. Her pulse started to race as the crimson haze of memory began  
to claw at her mind like a slavering wild dog. The men had been here, the men who had  
tortured, raped and butchered her sisters like toys made of meat.

The coiled serpent of hate that was always there below the surface hissed into full wakefulness.

She wanted to kill them. Kill them all. Every last one of them,  
the monsters, the abominations that were the human race.

A warm hand on her shoulder brought the pink haired Pokewoman out of her bloodlust.

"Peace, Kaede. Remember who you are."

Suddenly ashamed of her behavior, she looked down at the floor. It had been an unforgivable lapse of control.

However the General said no more about it. She too could feel the echoes of the dead. The unheard cries  
for mercy, pleas for an end to the suffering, the very air itself seemed to smell of old death and lingering pain.

A Pokewoman could go mad in here, listening to the voices that were not quite there.

They would have to finish this quickly.

She saw the broken doors ahead.

"There, the Creche."

The small party silently stepped inside the vast room. It was quiet as a tomb  
and lined with vast rows of broken and smashed machinery.

Verdandi walked past the dark metal and broken glass with increasing urgency  
in her steps as she failed to find what she sought. Her dreams had led her here,  
but where was it?

"My Lady?"

Kaede and Nana look worriedly at their beloved leader as her composed face  
began to show signs of confusion and distress.

"But it must be here."

Her dreams had never been wrong before.

"My Lady, what did you hope to find here?"

The leader of the Valkyries spoke softly, as if afraid her voice would be swallowed by the darkness.

The word left the General's lips in a sigh of defeat, _"Hope."_

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

General Clair let the hot mug in her hands warm her cold fingers as she walked quietly out towards the front lines.

All of the preparations had long since been completed during the night. Now was the worst part, the waiting.

The guards on duty saluted her as she passed them and she returned it half-heartedly. She couldn't help noticing  
how young their faces looked, they must have been still in school when the War began. Renee felt like she was  
a thousand years old. This was what they'd been reduced to, throwing children into the bloody grinder of battle.

Humanity had never won a single major battle in the War. Even when they'd still had the numbers and the ammunition  
to engage at something close to parity, the result had more often then not been a stalemate until massive enemy  
reinforcements forced yet another withdrawal to tighten up the defense lines.

She stepped softly as she came to the holding area for the 'Special Weapons Battalion'.

All those tanks, antiaircraft guns, artillery and flame weapons outside were merely a sideshow.  
In here was the real fighting force that would be shouldering the lion's share of the upcoming battle.

Three hundred people, young and old, men and women, all of whom  
had managed to establish a bond between themselves and their charges.

"General! I didn't expect to see you here."

The brown haired man who'd been leaning against a locker hastily straightened to attention.

"Hello William. No need for formalities, not now."

Renee studied the young soldier's frazzled hair, it looked like someone had been tugging on it  
with more enthusiasm then was healthy for it. His uniform looked slightly rumpled as well,  
and the stains on it suggested that he was reusing it from a prior day. It would have gotten  
him into trouble in normal times, but these were not normal times.

"Are they ready?"

"Yes, Ma'am. They all understand what's on the line here."

"Good."

It was hard to believe that he was a Battalion Commander just by looking at him.

But those who had seen his team in battle knew why he was in that position.

"It's almost dawn. You'd better get ready to deploy."

"Yes, Ma'am."

Clair turned to go, then hesitated and turned back to the departing young man.

"Good luck!"

He smiled back at her and gave a thumb's up.

She held her composure until he was gone.

Then the agony she'd been bottling up inside spilled out.

_'Oh God! William, forgive me! Forgive me!'_

She had just sent her youngest brother out to die.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

For almost a decade, Verdandi had loyally followed the imperative that drove all of them,  
the destruction of the enemy to protect themselves and their sisters. It was a duty she  
had done efficiently and effectively, always concentrating on keeping her casualties  
as low as possible for a victory. But somewhere along the way she had grown weary  
of the endless battles and the senseless slaughter. Yet that had only driven her to try  
and defeat her opponents even faster, in hopes that it would bring about a final conclusion  
to the fighting that much sooner.

But as the years had passed some of the other Generals had also began to question their ultimate purpose.

They too had seen too much blood and endless ranks of the dead.

_Did it have to end this way?_

And so, even as they moved to encircle the final bastions of the human race, the leaders who had once  
been united in a single purpose were now divided into two factions. One that wanted to complete  
the final destruction of the human race and the other that believed in at least the possibility  
of coexistance.

To complicate matters even further, within the last year the humans had introduced their own 'Pokewomen'  
and the shock of fighting and killing their own kind for the first time had shaken many of their sisters.  
Almost as great a shock had been the discovery that these human sympathizers had been born from human wombs.

Although some of the armies had supplimented their numbers by converting captured human females,  
it had been unthinkable to believe that their kind could ever come directly from pure human stock.

So now not only did they have to contemplate the genocide of an entire species, but the potential deaths  
of their own kind at their own hands as wells. Some of the Generals like Karasuba had argued that they  
were merely abominations who deserved the same fate as the humans. But what then, would the armies turn  
on each other once their mutual enemy was destroyed? Once it became acceptable to kill another Pokewoman,  
where would it end?

And so at last it would come down to a vote.

The twenty seven generals would decide if humanity would live or be destroyed.

And Verdandi didn't know what she would do.

If they let the humans live, wouldn't their enemy merely rebuild and eventually begin the War again?

But she couldn't simply slaughter them all. It wasn't right.

And then her dreams had led her here, to where it had all begun.

But it seemed her dreams...had been wrong.

Then Nana cocked her head slightly, looking up and around.

"Papa? Papa!"

Before any of the others realized what she was doing, the small Psidyke took off down an unexplored passage.

"Nana! Wait!"

"Shit," Kaede swore as she ran after her younger sibling.

Few things could threaten an alert Psidyke, but Nana was too softhearted for her own good.

Behind her, she could hear the pounding footsteps of the others chasing after the two of them.

Then she heard Nana scream and raw fear gave her feet wings of ice.

"I'm coming, Nana!"

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Kaede burst into the room, her soft pink hair slithering like a field of upset snakes  
as her eyes glowed an eerie red, searching for the threat to her little sister.

She saw Nana curled up into a little ball in the corner and then the hideous figures  
looming there in the middle and her Telekinetic Hands extended out to kill...

And then she stopped.

Breathing heavily, the Psidyke gradually brought herself down from the adrenaline boost.

She'd never seen so many dead Black Widows in one place before.

There were over two dozen of the monsters, locked in a frozen moment of mortal combat.  
Most of the walls, floor and ceiling had been gouged heavily, testaments to the brutality  
of the battle. Widows did not die easily, even after vital organs were pierced or ripped out,  
their bodies could keep on fighting for some time. Never had that simple fact been more apparent  
then here and now.

Two of them were locked in a twisted parody of a lover's embrace, razor sharp legs sunk deep  
into the other's abdomens while their heads gave their partner what had to be the worst case  
of hickies ever recorded.

Behind her, she could hear the Valkyries retching as they entered. Kaede supposed that the smell  
must be horrible for the sensitive Pokegirls who lacked a Psidyke's ability to dull the senses  
to prevent sensory overload in hostile environments.

Nana was whimpering, clutching at the horns on her head.

Kaede started towards her, making soft soothing sounds with her tongue to try and calm the girl.

And then the Voices were inside of her head.

_**'Kill...Kill...Kill! Sweet warm blood...Kill...the taste of live squirming meat...the nectar  
of the prey's fear and suffering...Kill...Kill...devour them...KILL!'**_

The Psidyke dropped to her knees, dimly aware that the Valkyries had done the same. The beautiful  
warriors were writhing and screaming as the whispering darkness crept into their brains. Not quite  
Phantoms of the Black Widows, but an Echo of them. Less then memory, a toxic clinging mist of  
emotion that had soaked deeply into the surroundings and now pulled at their collective sanity  
like a black leech.

_'Get out! **Get out of my mind!**'_

_"Away."_

The Voices fled before the sudden bright blue radiance that illuminated the darkness.

It was coming from General Verdandi. The kindness normally found in her gentle features  
had vanished as the steel beneath the velvet revealed itself. They were under her protection  
and all that sought to harm them would have to answer to her.

Almost sobbing with relief, her subordinates struggled to their feet.

Kaede ran to Nana and grabbed her tightly.

"You shouldn't have run off like that! I was so worried about you!"

Even as she harshly berated her young sister, the pink haired Psidyke  
clutched her protectively as if to shield her from the rest of the world.

"What were you thinking, Nana?"

"But Papa-"

Kaede squeezed her eyes tight as the rage surged up inside of her at the thought  
of Sukebe, their creator. Of all the Psidykes, only Nana had any good memories  
of the man that had designed them. Somehow clinging to that had kept the little  
girl sane as the other men had experimented on her again and again. Kaede's own  
memories of him were hazy, just the impression of a face and cold empty eyes.

"He's gone, Nana. You know that."

Despite their best efforts, none of the Pokewoman armies had managed to find where Sukebe  
had fled. They'd discovered places where he had been, but those were always abandoned.  
But they knew he was out there somewhere, because how else could he have still been sending messages  
to the humans? Despite the claims by the human forces that they'd killed him with a cruise missile strike  
in the seventh year of the War, there were still many Pokewomen who questioned the truth of that.

Nana shook her head in denial.

"Papa! Papa!"

"Kaede."

The Psidyke looked up at her leader's call.

"My Lady?"

"I think Nana may not have been entirely wrong. Look."

Kaede turned her head to where Verdandi was pointing.

Her jaw dropped in astonishment.

It was the largest Widow the Psidyke had ever seen, living or dead. The mummified body  
was almost five meters high and had obviously had considerable trouble getting down  
to this depth before it had expired. The trail of ruined corridor behind it went beyond  
the limits of even the Valkyries' nightvision.

And there, partially hidden by its bulky mass...was a door.

It seemed to have been designed to perfectly blend in with the wall, but the Widow had  
managed to pry the thick metal open halfway, just large enough for a normal sized person  
to get through, but not enough for the monster to break inside.

The pinkhaired girl understood immediately.

Something inside there had attracted the Widows here. All of them.

They must have been desperate to break inside there, but Widows would not tolerate any other  
lifeforms in close proximity, not even other Widows. They had fought each other until  
the last dying survivor had reached her goal. Then it had tried to force its way in  
and almost succeeded before expiring.

"Lady Verdandi?"

She nodded silently.

They proceed cautiously into the chamber. Three of the Valkyries went through first,  
sweeping for the annoying traps that the humans were always so fond of. When they  
were sure the area was clean, they signaled for the others to follow.

Kaede followed her shimmering commander into the room.

There was the steady faint hum of machinery operating in the background here.

The Psidyke could instinctively sense the flow of electricity, like a loose tooth  
itching in the back of her jaw. It made her hackles rise. Something in here  
was drawing power and using it.

And there in the center of it all was...

"We've checked it out, it doesn't appear to be one of the humans' weapons."

Kaede gritted her teeth. That large metallic capsule reminded her far too much  
of the 'containment units' that the first Pokewomen had been kept in between  
experiments.

But her telepathic probes returned no response from inside.

Another Human trick?

General Verdandi found her breath suddenly quickening.

_Here._ The answer was here, she could feel it in the very marrow of her bones.

The dreams had brought her here, at this moment...because...

One elegant hand reached out towards the dark protective sheath.

**-Contact-**

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Commissioner Stonewall Vimes spat.

By the time the gooey mass hit the ground it clinked as it bounced off the hard pavement.

His men were dug in, his artillery was ranged and the 'special units' were on the front lines,  
ready to fight the enemy, for whatever good it would do. They were badly outnumbered  
and most of his remaining forces were only Mounties like himself, with a smattering  
of conscripted civilians and military personnel to fill in the gaps.

How he had ended up in charge of the defenses of Ottawa, he didn't know. There had been  
a blur of faces over the years who had called the shots as the War progressed. Generals,  
Colonels, Majors, Ministers and Viceroys had all shouted orders and gotten people killed  
until they'd finally died and then it was only Vimes left in charge trying to keep  
the survivors alive one day at a time.

All he knew was that his city and her sister city Regina were the only known remaining sanctuaries  
for humanity in North America. There might still be pockets of survivors somewhere  
in the No-man's land that was the rest of the continent, but once the last strongholds  
of resistance were crushed, they would only be ripe wheat under the sweep of the scythe.

And now it looked like their luck had finally crapped out.

Through his field binoculars the commissioner could just make out the orderly ranks waiting just  
outside of artillery range. He had to admit grudgingly that General Teresa, _'The Faint Smile'_,  
knew what she was doing. Recognizing that her main field army's strength lay in close quarters  
combat, Teresa had covered her flanks with those godawful Gungals and Meltran giantesses.

And that was only to the East.

General Prier and her demonic forces blocked the West, augmented by swarms of Buzzbreasts that  
controlled the local airspace. Vimes still had a few combat helicopters left, but it would have  
been suicide to deploy them. Only the threat of his anti-aircraft guns kept the flyers at a distance.

But worst of all was the threat from the South. General Verdandi, the Legendary Reaper of Souls herself,  
and her invincible legion were pointed straight at them. They were probably the most demoralizing force  
for the men. After all, how do you fight angels without surrendering to despair?

So what were they waiting for?

He spat again.

This ground root stuff wasn't even close to real chewing tobacco.

"Sir, awaiting orders."

He turned to see on one of his junior officers, thin and pale, looking up at him for instructions.

"Hold positions. I don't know why they're just standing there,  
but I'm not going to question anything that gives us a little more time."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Time seemed to slow to a crawl.

Kaede was running towards her leader, but it was as if the air had condensed into thick syrup.

She would remember that scream every single day for the rest of her life.

**"My Lady!"**

She caught the General's crumpling form as she fell, almost buckling under the dead weight  
until two of the Valkyries came to her aid.

Together they gently eased Verdandi's limp form into a more comfortable position  
as one of them rushed to check her vital signs.

Kaede turned back towards the machine. That evil device that had done this.

Her transparent hands emerged from around her horns.

She would destroy it.

_"No..."_

The voice was weak, but the tone of command was still there.

_"Do not harm it."_

The Psidyke swiveled around, her eyes blazing with the color of fresh shed blood.

"Why? It hurt you! It must be destroyed!"

_"No. We must go from this place."_

"Lady Verdandi!"

_"You swore an oath to follow where I lead. Will you renounce that now?"_

Slowly the light faded from Kaede's eyes until they were their normal brown again.

"No, My Lady."

_"Tell the others that this area is forbidden to all of our kind by my authority."_

The horned girl nodded silently. Tears were welling in her eyes  
as she saw how much the words were costing her beloved leader.

_"There isn't much time."_

The two Psidykes clustered close to the general as the Valkyries  
around them prepared the recall circle.

There was a sudden blue flash of light.

And then the Chamber was empty save for the quiet humming of the machines.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Flonne and Shaelle were waiting for them at the Gateway.

**"Mistress Verdandi!"**

Healers rushed forward.

The General's hand came up.

_"No."_

"But-"

_"The vote, is it being still being held?"_

The two Angels bowed.

"Yes, Mistress."

_"What is the count?"_

Flonne stepped forward, the petite blonde's face contorted with worry.

"General Tsunami and General Arcueid have changed their positions to support General Miya  
and General Moana. As it stands now, the count is thirteen for and thirteen against."

The taller Shaelle met her leader's gaze without flinching.

"Mistress Verdandi, your vote will be the deciding one."

The General closed her eyes.

_"And Hild?"_

"She voted against destroying the humans."

Weak as she was, this still managed to get a soft chuckle from Verdandi.

How clever of her. She must vote with the Queen of the Demonesses  
or oppose her and sanction genocide. Either way, Hild would have  
gotten what she wanted.

_"I see."_

Kaede approached her.

"My Lady, there's still time for the healers-"

Her words trailed off as Verdandi's hand seized her own.

_"Kaede."_

The pink haired Psidyke could feel herself falling into the depths of those shimmering eyes.

"Yes, My Lady."

She knelt and allowed the starlight haired woman  
to place her hand on her head just above the horns.

Kaede cleared her thoughts and let her telepathic nodes open to their fullest  
to serve as a transmitter for her weakened General's psychic communication.

_**'Sisters. This War must End. Here. Now.'**_

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"What are they doing," General Clair asked rhetorically.

It was a question that many were asking themselves. The sun was up,  
but the expected attack had not come. Men and women stared out  
at the empty fields as if expecting an answer from them.

It was a bright new day.

**-End Prologue: A Sky Full of Stars**

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_"The Sleeper Sleeps but does not Dream.  
when the Sleeper wakes, the true Dream will begin..."_


	6. Chapter 1: Monsters in the Dark

**No Turning Back  
A Pokewomen Universe Story  
by Shade**

Porn with Plot Warning.

Copyrighted character use warning.

Ignoring what a lot of other people wrote warning.

Warning about warning warning warning.

_ "None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear."  
-Ferdinand Foch_

** -x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-  
Chapter 1: Monsters in the Dark  
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-**

_ He drifted in nothingness._

There was no color, no shape, not even a sense of self.

Only a vague awareness of a point that differentiated here from elsewhere.

Time meant nothing. Past and Future were concepts without meaning. It was always Now.

He was content.

This was peace. True peace.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

A faintly glowing green light began to flash yellow.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

_ There was a disturbance in the emptiness of the ever-present now._

The Void was retreating. The Wheel of Time was turning again.

Unwanted sensation began to percolate back into the fluttering butterfly of awareness.

He was himself.

He was alive.

He couldn't breathe.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

More lights began flash on the panel. Although there were fewer of them there should  
have been as many of them on the dusty panel appeared to have burned out.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

_ He couldn't breathe!_

His limbs flailed around as the brain sought for oxygen.

His arms struck something solid. He could feel the vibrations from the impact.

He couldn't breathe!!

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The capsule rocked.

More lights began to flash.

And then a muffled thump as bolts slid free and the sound of a large quantity of liquid splashing onto the floor.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

He hit the floor hard, vomiting liquid from his lungs.

It tasted like stale blood.

Desperately he inhaled the dusty dry air, coughing and choking.

It was dark here. Even with his eyes now open, there was only blackness.

_ Where was he?_

The last thing he remembered was....nothing?

On trembling legs he stood up. He turned around. There was less darkness  
over to his right...but even as he started to step forward it faded back  
into the rest of the gloom.

He was alone in the darkness. All alone.

He shivered and realized he was naked.

_ Where was he? Where were the others? _

One of his shins banged into something hard and he cried out at the unexpected pain.

The darkness seemed to swallow up his cry without a trace.

His hands reached out, feeling like a blind man for something to anchor his position.

Nothing.

Just empty space before his fingers.

He didn't like it here. He had to get out. He needed light.  
He needed to know that he wasn't alone. Where were the people?

_ He didn't want to be alone!_

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

She purified herself under the cold clear water of the waterfall.

Her silky white wings stretched out, the long soft feathers sleek and unmarred.

It was going to be another glorious day.

As she left her morning ablution, she dried herself with a plain cotton towel.

She dressed herself in a robe of white and pale green, the material coming tight  
over her generous bust as she finished tying the green and gold sash around her waist.

Her long hair was the color of warm sunshine and fell naturally down her back without  
the need for pins or braids. Aside from the elegant wire bracers on her forearms,  
the only ornamentation she wore was a small thin circlet of gold that showed over her forehead  
rather then resting on top of her hair. Her face was elegant but kind, with warm sky blue eyes.  
In another age, composers would have written songs about her beauty, kings and princes would  
have sailed half the world to claim her for their own, but here and now she was only the Priestess  
of the Forbidden Grounds.

"Urutori-sama."

Kneeling on the floor was a stoic young woman dressed in plain brown and grey cloth  
that was cut high on the thigh to give her long legs freedom of movement. Her hair  
was long and fine, the color of pure smoke ascending to the heavens. At her side  
was a long sheathed blade in a scabbard of dull black. Her eyes were closed,  
but even so that did not seem to hinder her vision.

"Good morning, Shiryu. I've told you before not to kneel."

"As you say, Urutori-sama."

Urutori noted that despite this acknowledgment, her informal protector still didn't rise.

"Tea?"

"Thank you, no."

The winged priestess sighed good-naturedly. Shiryu meant well, but the Ryutoshi line  
had always prized efficiency over social interaction. It made them unrivaled combatants,  
but rather lacking when it came to light conversation.

"The Rites of Remembrance are to be held today. I may be late returning to the shrine."

Her silent companion remained so.

"Ah, you don't need to shadow me. You know it will take you twice as long to get there."

Still no reply.

"Suit yourself."

Urutori quickly packed what she would need and carefully strapped the satchel on her back  
between her wings where the weight would not disrupt her flight balance. When she turned  
around again, the floor was already empty.

"So stubborn."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

The first hints of thirst began to quietly claw at his throat.

He was crawling on the ground like a toddler now. At some point he'd tripped over something  
with an edge and lacerated his left leg just under the kneecap.

It was humiliating.

He could feel the stickiness of his own blood slowly running down to the floor.

He had to get out of here.

It felt as if the darkness was pressing in on him like a great stone balanced on his head.

There had to be a way out.

_ "help."_

The word felt clumsy and unnatural in his mouth.

_ "Help."_

Less of a croak, but still barely understandable even to his own ears.

"Help!"

At last, the sound of his own voice was there with him and for a moment  
he could almost convince himself that he was alive and not alone.

But only for a moment.

The silence seemed to roll back into the gap his sounds had made in it like high tide coming in.

And then his questing hands found a gap in the wall. There was darkness there too,  
but a different shade from the one he had found in the rest of the room.

It didn't matter, he had to get out of there. He had to survive!

Stumbling to his knees, his injured leg trembling slightly from the raw throbbing pulses  
of hot pain coming from his wound, he lurched forward into the unknown.

The _Voices_ were waiting for him.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

It was a most enjoyable flight. The thermals were very stable today, allowing her  
to conserve a great deal of energy by using them to glide towards her destination  
with only minimal movements of her wings to keep her on course.

Urutori watched the ancient forest below her flight path. The peaceful natural scenery  
of the green growing things always soothed her soul even in the darkest times.

But she also kept a watchful eye for any movement or shapes that should not be there.

There had not been any sightings of Dark Evolutions in this area for many years,  
but the priestess had lived among these woods for most of her life. She knew better  
then to trust the picture of calm below.

The winged Pokewoman might prefer to avoid needless violence, but that didn't mean she wasn't very good at it.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

He was going Mad.

_ 'Blood. Delicious Warm Blood.'_

'Kill! Kill the Manflesh!!'

'Devour it, Yesss. Juicy, Tasty...wiggly.'

They were in his head.

_ 'Eat you. Eat you. **EAT YOU!!**'_

And then there was light. Faint, unearthly flickering pale white lights all around him.

He could see. And suddenly wished that he couldn't.

The mummified face of what had once been Linda McKenzie stared down at him.

_** 'We see you!'**_

He screamed.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

There it was up ahead.

Typhonna's Scar.

Even from a distance the change in terrain was startling. The line of trees ended abruptly  
about a hundred meters from a wide dirty brown ravine of fused rock and sand.

Nothing taller then scrub grass and an occasional thin bush grew here. Time and the elements  
had changed much of the area, but this wound to the land had not healed.

Perhaps it never would.

Urutori slowly began to circle as she descended. Landing was always the most vulnerable  
time for fliers. The white stone shrines that marked the Boundary were easily visible,  
they stood out from their surroundings like a shining beacon.

As she touched down, the wind seemed to sing as it danced through the winding sides of the gorge.

Urutori always wondered what her ancestors had seen here when they had come to perform the Rites in their times.  
The Forbidden Grounds had always been there, none of those who lived in the Deep Woods remembered a time when it was not so.

She approached the largest of the shrines. The rocks were well worn and pitted where water  
had ground away at it a droplet at a time. Moss grew thickly on them where the shade was thickest.  
The priestess would not have traded any of it for a temple of finest gold.

She took off her pack and stepped foward with slow reverence.

_ "The Sleeper Sleeps but Does Not Dream,"_

She sang like a nightingale.

_ "When the Sleeper Wakes, the True Dream Will Begin,"_

Her clothes seemed to take on a life of their own as Urutori began to move in time with the haunting melody.

_ "Watch for the Signs that will Mark the Heir,"_

Light began to form in an aura around her moving body.

_ "Water's Servant, Air's Master, Fire's Bane, Earth's Despair,"_

It trailed after her like an afterimage of all the colors of the rainbow.

_ "Free of True, Free of False, Let the Price be Paid in Full!"_

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Bones.

There were bones everywhere.

The white skulls stared back at him with empty sockets.

**_ He had to get out!_**

Terror gave him strength.

He was up and running, not even feeling his feet being slashed to ribbons on razor sharp shards of bone.

_** He had to get away from here!**_

The Voices pursued him, digging deep into his mind, clinging like fat spectral lampreys at his sanity.

** Run! Run!!**

He didn't know how long he ran or in what direction.

Everything was a blur of shadows within darker shadows.

There was only the _Fear_.

He stumbled over something and fell hard to the ground.

The sudden shock broke the spell. Pain flooded through his body as adrenaline  
left his system, leaving him gasping for air in short tight breaths.

The lights were gone.

He felt blindly for what it was that had tripped him.

It felt horribly familiar.

Something thin and papery crumbled away under his touch.

It was the ancient remains of a human arm.

He tried to thrust it away from him and yelped as something hard and sharp stabbed him on the hip.  
Without thinking he reached to pull it out and cried out again as his fingers met an edge of metal.

A knife.

His brain seemed to be moving at the speed of jello.

_ Knife. Weapon. Tool._

His hands found the hilt clutched tightly in bony fingers.

_** Survive!**_

Without really knowing what he was doing, his fingers pulled, trying to pry the blade from its former owner's grasp.

** He had to survive!**

There was a loud snap and the knife fell free in a shower of brittle bone fragments.

He grabbed for it and clutched it tightly to his chest.

It was sticky with his own blood.

But at that moment, it was the only point of reality in his world.

He had the Knife.

** _He would Live!_**

Light!?

There was light! Just the faintest speck...but it was there!

_ A way out...._

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Water splashed onto the stone altar.

Clear and pure, it overflowed from the shallow depression  
in the center and spilled onto the mossy stones below.

A handful of early summer flowers had been placed with care  
just over the basin. Their yellow and orange petals made  
a fitting offering in Urutori's opinion.

The Mother did not ask for much from her followers.

Just the play of light and water.

And a little faith.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The climb towards the little speck of light was a hellish ordeal.

The skin of his palms was scraped raw from clinging to uncertain handholds  
in the oppressive darkness as he scrabbled for each inch upwards.

The thirst was growing worse. His tongue felt like it was swelling up inside of his mouth.  
His lips were cracked and bled slightly with each painful muffled grunt he made as he pulled  
his aching body towards the glimmer above.

Only sheer willpower kept him from screaming when his feet accidently banged against  
the side of the shaft. If he had screamed then he would have dropped the Knife.

The Knife was important.

It was proof that he was alive.

Inch by inch he clawed his way to the light, to the promise of fresh air and freedom.

One handhold after another.

Higher and higher.

He slipped and nearly fell, only coming to a stop when his desperately seeking fingers  
found a crevice that held him long enough for his other hand to find a more secure grip.

He could smell a difference in the air now. A faint breeze brought the scent  
of grass to his nose. It only made him long for the light even more.

There was no sense of time, only of distance.

Closer and closer to the growing window of light.

He could begin to make out texures as well as shapes now.

The shadows were shrinking into lighter shades of darkness.

And then his hand was held out and caught by the full illumination  
and he could see it, really see it for the first time.

It was crusted with his dried blood.

He swayed as his head finally came up high enough into the light.

_ It was so bright!_

His eyes were dazzled to the point of pain as he still struggled to get the rest of his body  
out of the shaft. Tears ran down his face as his vision fought to adjust to the change from  
the long darkness.

He looked up and blinked away the tears.

The sun was shining over a field of waving green.

It was beautiful.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

_ The sweet smell of burning incense rose into the air._

"He comes."

The space was dark save for the tiny wisp of flame coming from the bronze brazier.

"The Destroyer."

** "Where?"**

The voice that spoke was cold and harsh like an axe left out in the winter night.

"From the Rising of the Sun."

** "The East? There are only weaklings and fools there."**

"Underestimate him and court destruction. The pebble will always precede the avalanche."

** "Then he must die."**

"Perhaps."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

He crawled under the warmth of the sun, leaving a small trail of blood  
on the grass as he moved away from the oppressive darkness behind him.

He needed water.

His ears had caught the faint sounds of a stream. He didn't know  
how he had recognized it, but the thirst drove any other thoughts  
from his mind.

The knife was clutched tightly in his wounded hand, while with the other  
he dragged himself forward. His feet were a mess, he didn't dare try  
to stand on them.

He could smell the water now.

Clean and fresh, it sang to him.

He tried to move faster.

So tantalizingly close....

And then suddenly he found himself slipping downwards, tumbling on loose stones  
and gravel until at last with a wet sploosh, his head hit the water.

He coughed and choked as he pulled his dripping wet head free from the stream.

It was cold.

He plunged his mouth back in and started to drink greedily like an animal.

It tasted better then anything he could remember. He could have drunk an ocean of it.

As he raised his head again, he laughed for the first time.

_ He was alive!_

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

He awoke as the sun was starting to set.

He didn't remember closing his eyes. But his body felt better then it had earlier.

He risked a look at his feet and saw that the damage wasn't as bad as it had seemed.

The wounds were deep, but already scabbed over. He risked putting weight on one foot  
and though it was still painful, it managed to support him.

He eased his feet into the stream, hissing slightly as the water softened the scabs.

Scrubbing as best he could with his hands, he washed his feet and hands clean  
of the caked rust colored blood on them.

After he was done, he took another drink a little upstream.

But when he looked at his reflection in the mirror surface of the water  
for the first time, he yelled out loud in shock and terror.

What had happened to his face?!

His hands flew up to his head.

They slowly traced the skin under his ears and came forward up to the tops  
of his cheeks where they met the obstacle of the Mask. It was white and hard,  
not like stone or metal, but almost like bone. It was smooth to the touch  
and his fingers traced their way up to where two small protrusions came out  
like miniature pointed horns on either side of the forehead.

Why was it on him?

_ He couldn't see his real face!_

No matter how he wrenched and pulled the Mask would not come off. It was  
as if it was actually a part of his face. It seemed to join seamlessly  
to the skin, there was no gap in between for him to find.

At last he fell to the ground on his back, panting with exhaustion  
from his fruitless efforts to free himself from the thing on his face.  
Numb acceptance that he could not remove it gradually settled over  
his initial panic and he slumped onto the grass.

His stomach gurgled unhappily.

He was hungry. There seemed to be a pit where his stomach should be,  
a void that demanded to be filled and made images of foods he couldn't  
remember the names of swim in his vision.

He couldn't think about anything else. The need for nourishment was driving his system,  
all of his mental functions seemed to suddenly be focused on getting something to eat.

When had he last eaten?

Like everything else, he could not remember.

He looked around.

There were stands of trees not too far away, but he could see neither fruits nor nuts  
on their branches. The grassy area offered no other signs of life, not even a single  
rabbit he would have happily made a meal of.

And then a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye made him turn back to the stream.

He saw the fat silhouettes swimming in the water.

_ Fish._

His mouth watered.

_ Food._

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The priestess made her camp by the shrines.

A small fire ringed with stones crackled merrily as a metal pot with four steel feet  
bubbled delicious smells over it. Next to it wafts of fragrant steam arose from  
the seeping herb tea.

Shiryu would probably arrive in time for dinner, she knew. While it would be nice  
to have company, she wished that the other Pokewoman wouldn't push herself like that.

Very few things in this region would attack an Onkami once.

Natural selection ensured that they wouldn't do so twice.

Nevertheless, she had set alarm wards around the camp.

If anything unwanted did decide to show itself, she would have plenty of advance warning.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

He stared hungrily at the teasing shapes beneath the water.

There had to be a way to get them.

He could feel thaT the knowledge was there, but as soon as he concentrated on it,  
the memories fled. The hunger wasn't helping either, all he could see was fish.

_ If he could only reach out and grab-_

His arms blurred and stabbed through the water towards their target.

Surprised trout suddenly found themselves launched into the air  
where they flopped helplessly onto the warm grass.

His jaw dropped.

How? He hadn't even been thinking, it had just been the desire for it.  
He had not told his body what to do, his arms had just moved on their own.

Almost as if they had done this before.

As if he had done this before.

But he was too hungry to stop and question his good fortune.  
He went for the desperately flopping fish and ended their struggles with the knife.

Then he stared at the bodies.

Fire. He needed fire to cook them. Dimly, he could recall that the flesh  
of some fish could be eaten raw, but these were not the right kind for that.

He looked towards the woods.

_ Fire...._

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

_ It watched him from within the forest._

It saw him gather the abundant supply of dead wood from under the trees.

It tracked him back to the bad place where it did not dare to go.

Meals the size of this one were rare and required a bit more cunning then its usual fare.

But it was patient.

It only needed to strike him once.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The delicious smell of roasting fish was making him drool.

He had used the knife to sharpen some sticks that he'd impaled through the trouts' mouths.  
Then he'd found two Y-shaped branches that he had used to set the sticks on and now watched  
with avid eyes as little drops of oil dripped from the cooking fish.

The fire had been easy, almost too easy.

He had wanted the fire, but he had not thought about how to make the fire.

He'd looked at the fish as his hands moved on their own and took two sticks.

They had blurred again just like when they'd caught the fish and then there had been a small flame.  
He had fed it with grass and small bits of wood until it was finally big enough for real pieces of wood.  
Once it had burned down to coals he'd set up the fish and now he was almost dancing with impatience  
to take them down and eat them.

At last the skin was crispy and coming off of the meat and he could wait no more.

He barely felt the heat as he pulled the nearest trout to his mouth and bit down.

Hot fish juices filled his mouth as he mashed the soft white flesh with his teeth.

He paused just long enough to gulp the first bite down before going back for another bite.

_ Food. Glorious food._

He ate as if that was his only purpose in life.

There were six fish. By the time he was though they were only heads, fins and bones.

He licked his fingers clean like a child. Fish grease was smeared all over his mouth.

Now that his most immediate needs had been finally satisfied, other concerns began to make themselves known.

He sniffed himself and quickly wrinkled his nose.

He stank of sweat, blood and other things. But most strongly of all  
was the stale smell of the liquid that he had been in back in the darkness.

He didn't want to remember that. But the smell and the sticky feeling  
on his skin kept reminding him of it. He wanted to wash it off.

But....

The stars were starting to come out overhead. He looked at the dark ribbon that was the stream.  
It had been so cold when he'd drunk his fill earlier. With the sun gone, it would surely be  
even colder now. He remembered the icy shock when his head had been dunked in there.

He shivered.

But there was another feeling as well. He did not want to go into the cold water.

Not just because it would feel cold, but because it _*was*_ cold.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

In the end, his protesting nose won over the vague sense of dread.

Slowly, carefully he stepped out into the water, feeling his toes  
go numb from the cold as he waded towards the middle of the stream.

Trying to finish quickly, he splashed himself and started to clean himself  
as best he could with handfuls of grass balled up into a crude kind of scrubber.

He could feel goosebumps forming all over.

And gradually another sensation began to form as he continued to rinse and scrub.

It was the weirdest feeling, as if his body was both expanding and shrinking at the same time.

He looked down at his chest.

It was a chest, but it wasn't his.

It was _*hers*_.

**"AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!"**

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Urutori's head came up.

That had almost sounded like the echo of a scream.

But that was impossible. Nobody lived in the Forbidden Grounds and no creature  
could pass the stone markers of the boundary line. She knew that as she knew  
that the sun would rise and set from east to west.

But if it had not been a scream, then what was that noise?

Shiryu had not arrived yet. Her protector would probably go to great lengths _*not*_  
to point out how she shouldn't be investigating on her own. The Ryutoshi was very good  
at _*not*_ lecturing when she was upset with her charge.

Sometimes silence could be louder then shouting.

But she was the Priestess of this area. It was her responsibility.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

This had to be a dream.

Men didn't turn into women.

But her hands confirmed that, yes, those were breasts and yes,  
they apparently did belong to him or as it were now, her.

She leaped out of the water as if it had suddenly turned to ice and ran back to her fire. There had to be a way to turn back!

_ She was a guy!_

There was a sense of familiarity about that and for an instant  
she could almost feel the shape of a memory on the tip of her tongue.

But then the moment passed and she was back to hopping naked and dripping wet  
around the red glowing embers. Unable to think of anything better to do,  
she threw more wood on the fire to build it back up to a steady blaze.

The crackling heat pushing back against her face calmed her down a little.

The warmth was a familiar thing. Another symbol of the life she couldn't recall.

But why had he became a she?

She tried to summon the knowledge from the fog and shadows in her brain,  
but was rewarded only with a steady throbbing pain in the back of her head.

She clutched at the base of her skull, gasping and whimpering as she curled up into a ball.  
It felt like all the pressure in her head would simply explode out in a gory display  
of blood and brains.

_ "chi-chi."_

She looked up at the sound.

Through watering eyes she saw what looked like a small figure at the very edge of the forest.  
It looked back at her and she gasped as she realized it was the face of a small girl.

The face vanished and the figure slid deeper into the woods.

"Wait!"

She called desperately after the retreating girl. It was the first person she had seen  
since waking up. The presence of another person meant that she wasn't alone.

Her head still throbbing, she started to stumble after the girl.

Almost without her noticing it, the Knife was in her hand.

She didn't understand why it was there, but as the darkness of the forest grew nearer,  
she was glad for its presence. What had seemed so harmless when the sun was still up  
had taken on a more ominous appearance with only the twinkling stars watching from above.

The figure led her deeper into the woods.

No matter how fast she tried to go, she just couldn't seem to close the distance.

At last, panting for breath, she came to a halt. She didn't know how far she'd gone in,  
but she could no longer see the edge of the forest, there were only silent trees looming  
in every direction.

She turned around and realized she didn't know which way she'd come from.

Everything looked the same. There was no sign of her passage.

She suddenly realized that she was lost.

But not alone.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The night breeze was cool on her skin as she swooped through the sky.

Her eyes spotted a fire that wasn't hers in the night.

She came lower for a closer look and let out a gasp of shock.

It was inside of the Forbidden Grounds!

But...that was _impossible!_

The priestess scanned the ground frantically for the intruder.

Who would dare to violate the ancient taboo set down by the Legendary Verdandi herself?

And how had they gotten past the protections?

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

_"chi-chi."_

Again came the sound and she turned towards it.

It was the half-hidden face of the little girl.

But something about it was...._off._

She held up the knife, suddenly wishing she was back at the fire.

The way the figure moved was all _wrong._

Slowly, it stepped into full view.

_** "Chi-Chi!"**_

She screamed.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

This time Urutori heard the scream.

The blonde Onkami pulled a sharp right and banked in the direction that the cry had come from.

Gone was the expression of an easy going priestess.

It had been replaced by grim features of a Pokewoman in full battle mode.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The pale face of the little girl extended forward....and split into four triangular sections  
from out of the middle. Rows of curved serrated teeth exposed themselves as the sections peeled  
back to reveal a glistening horribly long sticky tongue that tasted the air like a snake.

Glowing yellow eyes the size of her hands eyed her hungrily from where they were suddenly revealed  
above and behind the mask of the girl, along with the creature's true form. Camouflaged by the darkness,  
the monster's black body was nearly invisible until the faint starlight shone on it directly through gaps  
in the leaves above. It was like some bizzare cross between a reptile and an insect. Ridges and scales  
competed with segemented insectile armoring that protected its limbs. The joints of its legs  
were backwards, like some kind of giant grasshopper. Every foot seemed to end only in points.

** "CHI-CHI!"**

It screamed at her.

Something dark and viscous oozed from the largest fangs at the outer edges of the beast's petal style mouth.

Her mouth went dry.

It was beginning to move towards her.

She stepped back slowly, trying not to show her fear.

She could sense that if she panicked and ran, it would be all over her.

What was it?

She had never seen anything like it.

The fish, the trees, those were things she knew she had seen before.  
She didn't remember when or where, but the knowledge was there,  
the certainty that those things were real and normal.

This monstrosity..._wasn't._

Her eyes just couldn't seem to accept the way it stalked towards her.

The way it moved was all wrong. The joints bent and her mind told her  
that it was at all the wrong angles. She found that she couldn't move,  
the obscenity of its motions seemed to hypnotize her.

One foot couldn't find its balance in time and she stumbled.

It lunged at her in a blur.

She swung the knife on pure reflex as she fell.

It caught on one of the petals of the mouth and stuck there like it had been glued on,  
ripping the hilt out of her unprepared hand, taking some of the skin of her palm with it.

Pain seared down her shoulder.

She clapped her bleeding hand to the wound. One of the teeth had grazed her,  
the wound was not deep, but it felt as if she'd been scalded by a red hot poker.

She watched in stunned silence as the creature snapped its four-sided maw shut,  
breaking the steel blade almost contemptuously and then spitting the pieces out.

The proof of her existence had broken so easily.

It had been the only thing she'd brought out from the darkness.

And now it was gone.

It had been a symbol for her life. Something solid that she could believe in.

She shook her head frantically.

_ This couldn't be happening!_

She shuffled backwards, her eyes going blurry all of a sudden.

_ It couldn't be true!_

She could feel ice flowing into her veins from the wound now.

_ Poison..._

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

_ The predator followed the food steadily._

There was no rush now.

It watched and waited.

It was good at waiting.

Soon the meat would stop and it would feed.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

She couldn't feel her arm anymore.

The ice was spreading down her ribs, soon it would reach her legs.

And then....

The eyes were getting closer.

She fumbled backwards, never turning away from the death that approached her.

She fell.

The clearing was small, where a tree had fallen not too long ago.

She could see stars twinkling above.

Her feeble efforts to get up accomplished nothing more then to leave her twitching on the carpet of dead leaves.

She could hear it coming for her.

The petaled maw opened up.

_ "GRAVIGA!"_

The beast squealed in sudden pain as its body and the immediate ground surrounding it  
collapsed under a large sphere of crackling black and purple energies.

She tried to focus her vision, but everything seemed to be fading into a blur.

There was somebody out there.

_** "AERO!"**_

The creature was tossed into a large tree like a small toy. It hit the hard wood with an audible crunch.

** "HOLY!"**

Light. So brilliantly white that it cut away the night like a blowtorch against cobwebs.

But the darkness was already pulling her back.

With all of her will she strained to see the figure approaching her.

For an instant, she saw her.

_ An angel with wings of white...._

....and then there was only the Darkness.

** -End Chapter 1: Monsters in the Dark**


	7. Chapter 2: The Will to Survive

**No Turning Back  
A Pokewomen Universe Story  
by Shade**

Porn with Plot Warning.

Copyrighted character use warning.

Ignoring what a lot of other people wrote warning.

Warning about warning warning warning.

_ "Sometimes questions are more important than answers."  
-Nancy Willard_

** -x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-  
Chapter 2: The Will to Survive  
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-**

Urutori knelt down beside the injured figure and one hand traced lightly over the bloody shoulder.  
Mocker bite. And at least one of the barbed fangs had lodged in the wound too. If left untreated,  
it would be fatal. Even for a Pokewoman.

She didn't recognize the girl's type, though to be fair the filthy state she was in didn't exactly help  
her search for identifying marks. But that was something that could be explored at greater length later.

The priestess hefted the limp body in her arms, paying no heed to the stains it left on her pristine robes.  
The Onkami marveled at how light the stranger was and then winced at she got her first good look at exposed ribs  
and hollow cheeks. Her wings came out and she took off, leaving the wet smear of the Mocker to be disposed of  
by the forest.

One of the many Genetic Abominations that the long dead city of Viridick had created during the Third War,  
she had thought that the Mockers were nearly extinct by now. It was fortunate that she had managed to get  
the drop on it before the beast had managed to establish itself in the area.

But how had this girl come here?

She wondered about that all the way back to her campsite.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

_ Fire and Ice._

He was burning.

He was freezing.

Where one ended, the other began.

"You will be a man among men."

That voice was familiar. Older, male and rough.

"The lion will toss its own cubs off of a cliff to make them stronger. I can do no less for you."

It hurt! It hurt!

The blue flames were freezing him alive!

"Become stronger. When you fall, pick yourself up again and strive further and higher!"

The red ice was turning him into nothing but ash.

"Food is eaten. Money is spent. All of it can be taken away. Only strength remains."

There was a figure there, he couldn't see its face.

"A man among men."

He could not endure it. His body was falling apart.

Knives. A million tiny knives of glass slowly digging themselves deeper into him.

"Father!"

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Shiryu was waiting for her by the fire as she landed.

"Urutori-sama, are you injured?"

The priestess looked down.

Her robes were mess of red and brown.

"The blood is not mine."

The silver haired warrior took in the cradled figure in her arms and what it meant in an instant.

"What was it?"

"Mocker. Fully grown. Fortunately I caught it by surprise."

The eyes didn't open, but her lips went thin with tension.

"She was bitten?"

"Yes. Can you fill the pots and set them on the fire? I'm going to need lots of hot water."

The Ryutoshi nodded and moved quickly to get the water boiling.

The Onkami gently placed the softly moaning girl on her sleeping furs.

Then she stepped back and discarded her own ruined clothing without a second thought to the ground,  
revealing herself entirely to the watching moon. The cool night breeze made her wings instinctively  
fall back closer to her bare back, but otherwise she paid no attention to her nudity.

When the water had boiled she quickly used some of it to scrub off the grime and blood.

The silent Shiryu offered her a towel that she used to dry her hands and arms.

Once she was satisfied that she had cleansed herself as best she could,  
the winged priestess fetched her medical kit and bent down beside her patient.

"Shiryu, I must ask for your assistance. I need to get the fang out."

The other Pokewoman nodded and placed her weapon on the ground within easy reach  
before moving to restrain the unconscious girl.

The blonde Onkami pulled out a long pair of plain white bone tweezers.

As her companion steadied the bare shoulder that still oozed blood, she began to probe for the half-hidden tooth  
lodged in the red and pink flesh. It resisted her efforts to fish it out, tearing the surrounding muscles  
with tiny hooked barbs.

The priestess muttered a soft oath under her breath

Then she produced a small sharp knife from her pouch.

She let the blade heat in the fire until it glowed red.

"Shiryu. Be sure to do it quickly."

The other woman nodded and picked up the sterilized blade in one hand.

Urutori could feel the tension building up inside of her.

This would not be pleasant.

Her tweezers seized the fang tightly.

"Mother be with you, little one."

Then she yanked it out of the girl's shoulder in a spray of blood.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

_ "Foul Cretin! I shall Smite thee!"_

Those eyes full of hate.

"Accursed Sorcerer! I shall vanquish your foul magics!!

He couldn't escape them. Frozen in place, all he could do was watch the blow come.

The sword struck him.

** "DIE!!"**

His shoulder exploded into a crimson flower of agony.

He couldn't even scream.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The Ryutoshi brought the knife down.

Urutori forced herself to watch. It was the only way she could think of to share the other girl's pain.

The sickening sizzle the flesh made as the hot blade touched it was rivaled only  
by the sickeningly sweet smell of burned blood. A tiny wisp of steam puffed out  
from where the metal contacted the wound.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

_ "That felt like a baby's kick."_

His hands and feet were impaled against a wooden board.

"You always were good for nothing but running away."

It was only strips of cloth, but they felt like iron nails had been rammed through him.

Something wet was being poured on him. The fumes were making his nose burn.

'No!'

"Don't worry. I'll be sure to console your grieving fiancees."

The fanged mouth grinned as a match was struck.

'Don't touch-'

"Give us your best wishes....**FROM HELL!!**"

The tiny flame touched down.

**"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!"**

He was consumed.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Shiryu removed the no longer glowing blade.

Urutori swallowed back the traces of nausea and grabbed a clean piece of cloth that she dipped  
in the hot water and cleaned around the cauterized wound before finally wrapping a cloth bandage  
tightly around it.

Throughout the entire operation the unconscious girl hadn't made a sound. Even her earlier moaning  
had stopped. The only sign that she was even still alive was the faint pulse on her neck  
and the shallow breaths that barely stirred her ample chest.

Not a good sign.

Using the rest of the hot water and plenty of fragrant soap they finished washing her free  
of the accumulated grime and bits of the forest stuck to her skin and tangled in her long red hair.  
Thin beads of water gleamed softly in the pale moonlight on her freshly scrubbed skin  
as they toweled her off.

But for all the reaction they got from her body they might as well have been bathing a lifeless doll.

It would have to be done after all.

Urutori was grateful that Shiryu had set the skin tent up. While she normally preferred to sleep  
out under the stars, for matters like this, it was best to have a measure of privacy.

She carried the strange girl into the tent and placed her on the spare furs that the Ryutoshi  
had thoughtfully laid out for them. The girl's skin was cold, like touching a marble statue.

The priestess carefully straddled her, laying down until their respective breasts pushed against  
each other and the sound of her own heart was faintly echoed by the slowing beats of the masked stranger.

The Onkami embraced her, imparting her own body's warmth skin to skin. The winged blonde's body  
began to glow with a soothing yellow light as she started to sing softly to the unresponsive girl.

_ "Ai-mo, Ai-mo, Ne-de-ru ru-she,  
Noi na miri-a enderu purode-a,  
Futo-mi."_

A spectrum of swirling energy expanded out from the Pokewoman to encompass the joined bodies.  
Small random arcs of pure raw power caressed their exposed forms as Urutori focused her will  
on the flow that she was calling forth. Her voice was the channel that directed its path,  
her mind was the gate that controlled the intensity of the stream and her soul was what  
gave it form and purpose.

_ "Koko wa attaka na umi da-yo."_

The power swirled around the fragile fading spark of life. It passed through skin and flesh  
as though they were not there and it was as if many small invisible hands were there at a level  
too small to be seen, where the ions between nerves sputtered against the jammed conduits that  
would not let them pass. Here the poison, if there had been any observers at this scale,  
was a many sided geometric shape that seemed to pulse with its own inner malice.

_ "Mune no oku ni nemeru  
o-ki na o-o-ki na itsukushimi wa,  
tsunagu te no hira-no,  
ondo de shizuka ni me-ya samasu-yo."_

And it was here that the power flowed like the tide of the sea, picking up the little killers  
in a wave composed of millions of tiny hands that dissolved molecules into even smaller things  
that no longer choked the electrical paths of the nerve cells and which the body could eventually  
break down on its own.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

_ "We are in a warm ocean,"_

The pain was gone.

"The skylarks dance in the sky as waves,"

Someone was singing him a lullaby. Her voice filled him with a soothing warmth that seemed  
to saturate every cell of his body. It stirred something that was not quite a memory  
from the grey fog in his mind.

"You are my young and gentle child,"

A sunny day. The familiar warmth. A face he could not see, but he could sense her kindness.

"This great deep affection that sleeps within my chest,  
Slowly awakens now from the warmth of your hands,"

The unspoken bond of parent and child.

** 'Mother....'**

He descended into sleep once more.

But this time he did not dream.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Urutori stirred as the warmth of the morning sun tickled her exposed back.

Her wings twitched as the fine white feathers ruffled themselves, tucking themselves close  
as she sat up and stretched unselfconsciously in front of the tent's open flap.

The young Pokewoman could not remember the last time she had slept so well.

Normally the expenditure of power for something on the Level of a Healing Ritual  
left her weak and tired for hours afterwards. But this morning she felt fully charged,  
her energy reserves filled to full capacity.

It was strange, but not unwelcome.

Urutori turned back to check on her patient still slumbering on the bed beside her.

Her eyes widened as the last traces of sleep fled from her head.

The mask was the same, but it was not the same person she had rescued last night.

Black hair. An obvious lack of breasts. Larger then the waif of the previous night,  
but still smaller then either herself or Shiryu. She saw it all right there  
in front of her, but it was taking her longer to grasp the significance of it all.

Her gaze continued further down.

The muscles and framework were all familiar and yet completely alien. It was as if someone  
had taken the girl from last night and completely rebuilt her into a larger and tougher body  
that had nothing to do with femininity.

And then there was the part sticking out between the legs.

The priestess had observed the animals of the forest and possessed a few old books,  
but she had never before seen one on an actual person before.

It was almost too fantastic to be believable.

Her grandmother had told her stories about the Fourth War.

And now those tales had taken shape in front of her.

The first one to enter the Forests of Eternity in over nine hundred years.

A man.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The Ryutoshi tasted the broth and gave a small nod of approval.

Her morning search had scared up a pair of hares and located sufficient vegetation  
to make a hearty soup that she'd thickened with the oats from her supply pack.

Her mistress would need to replenish her strength and the injured girl could be fed  
more easily as well. While she found the stranger's presence here odd, she did not question  
her mistress's decision to provide aid.

Protection for those in need, Assistance to those who lacked, Punishment to those who harmed.

The three aspects of the Mother's way.

As she prepared two bowls of the steaming soup, Shiryu's mind wandered back to the disturbing events  
of the night before. A Mocker was bad enough, but she had also not yet had a chance to tell Urutori-sama  
of the reason for her own delay at arriving at the camp. There had been no time while the priestess  
had worked to save the life of the injured stranger and her mistress had fallen asleep immediately afterwards.

There were Dires in the Forest. She had slain the two that had tried to ambush her,  
but the tracks she had found indicated at least half a dozen more were roaming around.

Dires and Mockers shared a single connection. They had been created long ago by the humans of Viridick  
as Anti-Pokewoman biological weapons. The presence of one type or the other was unusual enough,  
but to have found the presence of both in such a short span of time was stretching the bounds of probability.

Shiryu was not a great believer in coincidence.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The wound was healing remarkably well. Had she not seen it just the prior night fresh and bleeding,  
the priestess would have sworn that it was several days old in the morning light. There seemed  
to be no signs of infection and she rebandaged his shoulder after reapplying some herbal ointment.  
Her studies had mentioned something like this in passing, traits that certain humans had gradually  
inherited from interbreeding with Pokewomen over several generations known as 'Bloodgifts'.

One hand gently traced the hard contours of the white mask. Not a seperate object as she had first assumed,  
the material was warm and seemed to be joined directly to his face. A few very old tomes had mentioned  
the other side of the mixing of the two species, physical and mental deformities known as 'Blood Curses'.

Was that what this was? It seemed plausible enough.

Satisfied for the present that she had done all she could and that her patient was in no immediate danger,  
Urutori decided to indulge her growing curiosity a bit more while she waited for the stranger to wake up.

Old stories and dry technical descriptions did not seem to adequately capture  
the essence of having a real flesh and blood human male in front of her.

For one thing, he seemed to be a lot less hairy then what the books had said to expect. There had been several notes  
about the presence of body hair as being a reliable indicator of adult specimens. From what she could see so far,  
there was no facial hair on those smooth skinned cheeks and none whatsoever from his neck down to his toes.  
Could this be a child instead of an adult then?

It would certainly seem to fit with his relative smaller size compared to any of the adult Pokewomen  
from the village she was acquainted with. Not a very young child certainly, but still waiting to make  
the transition into adulthood.

She nodded her head in satisfaction at having reached this perfectly logical conclusion.

It seemed to make absolute sense and gave her a frame of reference in which to treat the stranger from now on.

That it might be completely and utterly wrong never crossed her mind for a moment.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

He opened his eyes to see an angel studying his groin with an expression of intense interest on her face.

He wondered what the appropriate response to this was.

There was a vague recollection of someone telling him that _"It's different when a girl does it."_

So he stared at her as she studied him.

Then his eyes widened as he realized that she was as naked as he was.

Without even thinking, his hands flew down to shield himself and he tried to back away without looking directly at her.

At that point his shoulder decided to tell him that all of this movement wasn't such a good idea.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Urutori gave a small shriek of surprise as the boy suddenly reared back unexpectedly.

She had thought he was still sleeping. Then she saw him pale and clutch at his bandages.

The priestess was at his side in an instant, her healer's training taking over as she started  
to check to see that he hadn't reopened the injury. She didn't even notice how her patient's  
pale face suddenly turned bright red as he was given a very good look in every sense of the word.

It was only when Shiryu entered the tent with a tray of soup and several freshly baked oatcakes  
that the Pokewoman realized her own lack of garments. She accepted a set of fresh clothes  
from her friend graciously and dressed quickly.

She turned back to see the Ryutoshi suspiciously facing the young man who was shrinking back  
as far as he could into the flimsy protection of the furs.

"My lady, who is this and what happened to the one from last night?"

"**_He_** is right there."

There was a moment of startled silence.

Then Shiryu deliberately turned her head back towards Urutori and opened her eyes.

The golden amber pupils seemed to crackle with energy.

"Urutori-sama, was that supposed to be one of your jokes?"

The priestess looked straight into those disturbing eyes.

"No."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

He could barely understand anything they were saying. Some of the words sounded familiar,  
but mostly it was gibberish to him. But he understood the finger being jabbed in his direction  
by the silver haired woman all too well. She was upset about something.

The angel said something back, again he felt he could almost make sense of individual words  
but the grammer structure she was using didn't make any sense to him.

The only word he could indentify with any certainty had been "man".

His shoulder still ached but he pushed the pain down into the back of his mind.

As long as he made no further sudden movements it was tolerable.

His nose twiched at the delicious smell of the hot food the newcomer had brought.

He was starving.

But who were these people? His gaze went back and forth between the angel and the young woman.

They'd saved him from the monster and treated his injuries. But what did they want?

Whatever conversation the two were having finally seemed to come to a conclusion.

The silver haired beauty bowed stiffly from the waist and left the tent without a sound.

The golden haired angel looked troubled for a moment before her features recomposed  
into a more friendly expression as she turned back to her patient.

She said something that sounded encouraging in a voice like warm honey.

He said back to her, _"I don't understand."_

Now it was her turn to look confused.

She tried a few words that sounded like birds singing.

He shook his head.

Something singsong that almost had the right syllables was closer, but still unrecognizable.

She tried five or six more times, each in a different alien tongue, before finally giving up on it.

Instead the winged angel used a universal sign language. She took a bowl and plate from the platter  
of food that the other woman had brought in and took it over to him along with a wooden spoon.

The accompanying gestures she used were almost unnecessary, he got the point well enough.

He started to dig in.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Urutori could only stare at the spectacle taking place in front of her. She had never seen anything quite like it.

The boy ate like a starving wild animal. He stuffed his mouth until it bulged and barely bothered to chew before swallowing.  
Even the boiling heat of the soup barely slowed him down as he yelped once and then started blowing frantically to cool it  
down as he used the spoon like a shovel. The way he crouched over the tray it was almost as if he were afraid of the food  
being snatched away from him.

Only when he finally noticed her shocked expression did the youth blush in embarrassment  
and slow down his frenzied pace to something resembling a normal style of eating.

Satisfied for the moment that her patient was not going to injure himself by gulping his food down too fast,  
Uturtori grabbed a warm oatcake for herself and wrapped it around a steaming slice of hare. She chewed thoughtfully  
as she considered what was to be done now. Shiryu's news of the presence of Dires had forced her to discard  
her initial plan of simply flying her patient back to her home. With a passenger the flight back to her temple  
would have required her to make at least one landing to rest for awhile. That was not an option any longer,  
not with a pack of Dires roaming around.

The beasts were not truly intelligent, but they were cunning creatures. Resembling a fusion of wolf, boar and alligator,  
a single Dire easily outmassed the Onkami by several hundred kilos. They were also devilishly fast for their size  
and distressingly stubborn about tracking prey they had marked for however long it took them to finally bring it down.

No, they would have to go to the village. Shiryu had already dispatched a warning using one of the forest owls,  
so they should have already received it by now. That would be the safest place to stay until the infestation was eliminated.  
But first they needed to deal with this language barrier.

She didn't know if this would work on a non-Pokewoman. The ritual was ancient, passed down through her bloodline  
for generations. But time was short and if it failed then they would be no worse off then before.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

He fought the urge to lick his fingers. His face was still burning from the look on the angel's face. He hadn't meant  
to make such a pig of himself like that in front of her. But the food had been so good and he'd been so hungry.  
From the moment he'd taken the first bite he'd known that he had to finish quickly or else it would be stolen  
from him by....by....

He couldn't remember. But the feeling had been so strong that he couldn't stop himself.

It was so frustrating to have these holes in his memory. Every time he came close to grasping one of the teasing images  
that fluttered at the fringes of his awareness they dissolved like mist before the sun.

He looked up to see that the angel was glowing. His mouth dropped open until he remembered to close it again.

Shimmering blue radiance formed lines and alien symbols on her exposed skin. He could feel goosebumps forming  
on his own skin from the sensation of power he could somehow sense coming from them. It felt like the air  
was turning solid and pushing back against his body, He could see her chanting something but the sound seemed  
to fade before it could reach his ears. The strangest thing however, was that he wasn't afraid. He could feel  
the energy coalescing around the winged woman's form, but the presence of danger wasn't there.

He watched silently as she approached him, still enthralled by the light emanating from her body.

And then her beautiful face was right there in front of him.

**_ "Wo Ai Ni." _**

For just a second, he saw the image of a pretty purple haired girl smiling longingly at him.

And then the moment passed and he was looking into the sea blue eyes of the blonde angel again.

Right before she kissed him.

** -End Chapter 2: The Will to Survive**

-Bonus-  
-Features-

The Following Data was retrieved from the Post-Third War ruins of Pewtit Town.

** Pokedex Entry #000911**

Name: Black Widow  
Aliases: Widow, Widowmaker, Death on Eight Legs, Killer Bitch from Hell, Your Worst Nightmare made Flesh, Bitches from Satan's Ass

Classification: Dark Evolution  
Elemental Affinity: None  
Lifespan: Unknown  
Reproduction: None (Sterile)  
Habitat: Varies, seems to prefer dark places  
Reported Encounter Rate: Extremely Rare  
Diet: Anyone it can catch  
Libido: High & Twisted  
Strong vs: Poison, Physical, Water, Electric, Cold, Energy, Drain, Magic, Psychic  
Resists: Earth, Steel  
Weak vs: Plasma, High level Flame/Heat  
Evolves from: Special*  
Capture Difficulty: Impossible to Capture

Strength: A -Able to lift up to five times its body weight without effort  
Agility: B+ -Remarkably Agile for their size  
Speed: B -Top Measured Speed is 30 miles an hour  
Durability: A++ -Compartmentalized body structure with redundant support systems requires spinal cord destruction or brain death for a confirmed kill  
Endurance: S -Capable of sustained activity for at least 12 days without food or rest.  
Intelligence: C -have demonstrated rudimentary problem solving abilities  
Hostility Rating: SSS -will attack and kill anything in sight without mercy  
Distortion Field Strength: A+ -impervious to small arms fire, reduces damage from anti-armor weapons and explosives by half  
Armor Rating: A++ -Requires at least the Equivalent of Class A Strength to penetrate.  
Psychic Ability: D -Radiates an Aura of Fear in a 30' radius. Can sense and feed on the emotions of those it consumes. Immune to all mental attacks.  
Overall Threat Rating: SSS -Avoid at all costs

Special Abilities:

-Poison: The Widow's entire body is saturated in a lethal cocktail of exotic chemical compounds and biological poisons. Any bare skin contact  
with either the exterior or interior of a Widow has a high risk of transmittal into the victim's body. Any physical wounds inflicted  
by a Widow's claws or spines will also have a high probability of transmittal. Due to the complex and varied nature of the compounds,  
this contact poison will affect even Poison-types which are normally immune or resistant to other conventional toxins. Without prompt treatment  
by magic and/or specialized medical care, victims will suffer severe pain, internal bleeding and cellular degeneration for several days before death.

-Stinger: Contains a more concentrated and potent form of the chemical cocktail found on the Widow. One sting will kill a human  
or normal animal instantly and is fatal to most Pokewomen in a matter of seconds.

-Venom: A Widow's true-mouth and cunt-mouth both secrete a paralytic neurotoxin that inhibits voluntary muscle control without interfering  
with automatic nervous systems functions that control breathing and pain sensations. This venom is typically employed on prey to immobilize  
it for dissection and consumption while allowing the Widow to enjoy every last drop of pain and suffering before finally devouring  
the still living remains of its victim.

-Spit: A Widow's true-mouth is capable of shooting a spray or glob of concentrated neurotoxins and acid with exceptional accuracy up to 20' away.  
This spit is so corrosive that it will melt most organic materials that it contacts into goo in a matter of minutes and can seriously corrode  
all other substances except pure gold and platinum.

-Silk: Spinnerets located under the mouth, cunt-mouth and anus of the Widow are all capable of producing the same kinds of silk available  
to Spider-Type Pokewomen with the sole difference being that all Widow produced silk is infused with a strong paralytic contact poison.

-Climb Walls/Ceilings: Able to move on vertical and inverted surfaces without any penalty.

-Aura of Fear 30': Automatically radiates a continuous feeling of horror and agony around itself that helps it to flush out prey  
and cripple enemies attacking the Widow. Only the most stubborn and willful Pokewomen can endure or ignore this ability.

-Distortion Field: Like all Pokewomen, Widows generate a bio-energy field around themselves that protects against high energy/velocity attacks.

-Enhanced Chitin Armor: The light weight reinforced hide is 30x stronger then steel.

-Thermal Vision: A Widow's secondary eyes can detect infrared emissions from sources up to 40' away.

**_ From the Notes of Professer Donglong, P.S. 337:_**

...The Black Widow is the most infamous of the twisted mutations known as Dark Evolutions. Yet despite appearing time and again throughout  
modern history, very little is known about this terrifying monstrosity. Due to the enormous amount of damage the creatures can sustain  
before dying, all Widow corpses retrieved to date have been little more then bits and pieces or charred ash. Most of our information  
comes from the lucky survivors of Widow exterminations and recovered tapes of videos that were running during a Black Widow attack....

...Although no two Widows are ever alike, the species is easily recognizable by the jet black tauric arthropod abdomen with its distinctive  
red hourglass symbol. They can range in size from two to four meters tall and have been estimated to weigh as much as half a ton. Autopsies  
of the viable portions of Widow remains have confirmed the existence of secondary eyes on the creature's head that give them a limited  
360 degree vision in the infrared spectrum....

....To date, the only known countermeasure to Black Widows is high intensity heat. Thermite, White Phosphorus and Plasma have all been confirmed  
to set off a lethal chain reaction inside the creature's otherwise nearly impenetrable armored caraprace. While it would seem that  
Fire-type Pokewomen would be a natural enemy of Black Widows, such has not been the case in 90% of known Widow exterminations. It appears  
that most Fire-types either lack the ability to produce a strong enough Fire attack to kill a Black Widow or were unable to target the attack  
against the fast moving Widow before it killed them. Despite being vicious bloodthirsty killers, Black Widows have demonstrated at least  
a rudimentary intellect combined with an animal cunning that leads them to target Fire-type Pokewomen as a higher priority.....

....Black Widows are pure carnivores and prefer to consume live prey whenever possible. They are one of the few creatures that can feed on  
Pokewomen without suffering from the normal side effects involved in consuming High T-level tissue. While unable to feed on certain Cybernetic,  
Plant and Rock types that lack softer tissues a Widow will still kill and dismember the body for the sheer pleasure of it....

...Oddly enough, Black Widow attacks have been almost non-existent in regions where the child-like Psi-dykes dwell. The majority of survivors  
of Black Widow attacks are often found unconscious with a sleeping Psi-dyke and have no memory of what happened. Further investigation  
into this strange phenomenon has thus far proven fruitless as the Psi-dykes are too simpleminded to answer detailed questions and Psychic Pokewomen  
refuse to mindprobe a Psi-dyke under any circumstances. This has led to Psi-dykes being considered a kind of Anti-Widow charm in more rural areas,  
though there is as yet no scientific evidence to back up this folklorish assumption...

** The Sons of Sukebe**

_ This mysterious secretive cult is believed to have arisen shortly after the end of Sukebe's War. Following several attacks on key scientific installations  
the group was labeled a terrorist organization by the Seven Nations during the Golden Age. Members of the cult were hunted down by the authorities  
and it was believed that the organization had been destroyed until P.S. 214 when the Neo-viral bombing of the Pokeleague Summit by members of  
the Sons of Sukebe ignited the first Revenge War. Following the end of the Revenge War in P.S. 228, the newly formed United League Council issued  
a universal ban on all teachings and materials related to the SOS punishable by total mindwipe for offenders. Despite this crackdown the Sons of Sukebe  
continued to recruit members and engaged in various criminal activities to the point where they rivaled Team Rocket in terms of influence  
in the criminal underworld by P.S. 267. This culminated in a clash between the two outlawed groups in the city of Ankmorecunt in P.S. 273  
that left the city heavily damaged and resulted in hundreds dead on both sides as well as thousands of innocent casualties. As a result of  
the Battle of Ankmorecunt and the ensuing wave of assassinations of key Team Rocket leaders, the remaining Team Rocket leadership made a secret treaty  
with the ULC in P.S. 274 and together their combined forces rooted out and destroyed all known SOS bases in League territories by P.S. 287.  
Since that disaster the Sons of Sukebe have gone to ground and only occasionally reveal their presence through rare pirate hacks  
in communication networks and thefts of data from protected installations where their signature emblem has been left behind to taunt the authorities._

Interrogations of captured cult members has revealed that the Sons of Sukebe have two key missions and that all of the cult's actions are ultimately  
directed towards achieving these goals. The first ambition of the SOS is to follow in the path of Sukebe and achieve World Domination through total mastery  
of all Pokewomen. In order to accomplish this seemingly impossible task, the Sons of Sukebe have devoted much of their time and attention to searching  
for the mythical "Heir of Sukebe". While rumors and tales of this supposed successor to Sukebe's knowledge and power have been around for generations,  
the SOS believes that this legend is real and are obsessed with locating Sukebe's Heir at any cost.

** -Chronicles of the Pokeleague, 2nd Edition -BANNED BY ORDER OF THE UNITED LEAGUE COUNCIL-**

** T-Virus**

_ An artifical bio-engineered life-form created by Sukebe responsible for all Pokewomen related activity on Earth.  
Believed to have been initially released sometime around B.S. -10, this highly infectious virus is estimated  
to have infected over 80% of the human race by the start of Sukebe's War in B.S. -7. By P.S. 36, all remaining humans  
were confirmed to have been contaminated by the T-virus. As a result, all human females now carry the dormant genes  
for a possible Pokewomen transformation and pass this on hereditarily. All attempts to devise a vaccine against  
the T-Virus have failed due to the virii's complex nature and behavior._

Like Pokewomen, the T-virus is a seven dimensional being that interacts in normal space in ways that violate  
the physical nature and laws of this universe. By interacting with the genetic material of a host, the virus  
can radically alter the form and nature of the victim. The T-virus seems specifically designed for humans,  
experiments involving lab animals have resulted in horrible man-eating mutations and a permanent ban on all animal testing.

In women, the T-virus seems to particularly target genes related towards gestation and nursing, leading to it's initial nickname  
of the "Tits Virus" or the "T&A Bug". Low level contamination in women (.0125 or less) has no detectable effect aside from  
the normal disease resistance and reduced visual symptoms of aging. Chances for these "pure-bloods" to suffer Threshold  
are very remote under normal circumstances. Normal levels of contamination (.0475 - .0126) are generally noticable  
by increased bust size, physical attractiveness and unusual pigment colors on various parts of the body. The possibility  
of undergoing threshold at this level is rare but not unheard of. At High Levels of Contamination (.0850 - .0476), Threshold  
has a better then 50% chance of occurring by the late teens. Casual observers can easily confuse the appearance of these girls  
with certain domestic Pokewomen. At Critical Levels of Contamination (.0999 - .0851), Threshold is a certainty and can be triggered  
at any time. Once T-levels exceed .1000, a female's transformation into a Pokewomen occurs immediately.

Males do not suffer any noticable effects from the T-virus at levels below .0125. Blood gifts and Curses appear between T-levels .0126  
and .0899. At T-levels of .0500 and higher, unusual body features can begin to manifest, sperm viability is reduced and a heightened aggressiveness  
towards others can become noticeable. Human males can not naturally exceed a T-level of .0899 because the T-virus will systematically destroy  
the Y-chromosome once it reaches a T-level of .0900, killing the host and reducing their body to an organic orange goo. All research to artificially  
surpass this limit has been banned by the United League Council following several attempts that resulted in media blackouts of the facilities involved.

**-A Guide to Basic Pokewoman Research, 5th edition**


	8. Chapter 3: Ripples in the Pond

**No Turning Back  
A Pokewomen Universe Story  
by Shade**

Porn with Plot Warning.

Copyrighted character use warning.

Ignoring what a lot of other people wrote warning.

Warning about warning warning warning.

_ "People die if they are killed."  
-Emiya Shirou_

** -x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-  
Chapter 3: Ripples in the Pond  
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-**

-Contact-

_ Images flashed through his head in an unstoppable torrent that moved at the speed of thought._

Faces of strangers, all of them women, some smiling, others scowling  
and some of them that looked back with eyes full of madness.

** *Flash***

A kind faced beauty with shimmering silver hair looked so wistfully at him that he wanted to cry with her.

** *Flash***

A serious white blonde warrior with silver eyes and lips that formed a faint smile that held no warmth.

** *Flash***

Hair the color of pale smoke and eyes filled with such bloodlust that it made him want to scream in horror.

** *Flash***

Almost regal with her amused look, her long dark hair joined in front to form a single combined braid beneath her throat.

** *Flash***

Pink eyes and soft blue hair, so lovely that it almost made his heart ache.

** *Flash***

Faster and faster they appeared, one after another, never the same one twice.

Not just people anymore, but scenes of destruction and suffering, here and gone in the blink of an eye.

** *Flash***

It was going too fast. Everything was jumbling together. A school, no, a battlefield, smiling cute girl,  
but no she was angry and now her hair was short, a girl wielding some kind of shovel, but it became a ribbon  
and her hair was no longer brown but dark as sin-why a Panda-shriveled monkey-red eyes and blonde princess-  
red flames-dark skin-**EYESLOOKINGBACKATHIMFROMBEYONDTHEGLASS-**

And then it was only a kiss again, soft and sweet.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Urutori withdrew from the wide-eyed boy and touched her tingling lips with a hand that trembled slightly.

Whatever she had been expecting from the spell, **_*THAT*_** had not been on the list.

If Lightning could be distilled down to the very essence of power or if the sound of a pure note  
could be rendered in perfect color then she might begin to describe what that had felt like.  
The young priestess had a little knowledge of kisses, but nothing in her limited experience had prepared  
her for the brief sensory overload that had seized her when they'd made that brief connection.

She wondered absently if it had been as good for him as it had been for her.  
Then she scolded herself mentally for that thought, he was still only a child.

_ "What did you do that for?!"_

The Onkami looked back at the pale masked face that had finally started speaking understandably.

_ "Does this answer your question?"_

He gaped at her.

"I can understand what you're saying now!?"

Well at least the books had been right there, men were indeed a little slow on the uptake.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"What is your name?"

"I don't remember."

"Where did you come from?"

"I don't remember."

"How did you enter the forest?"

"I don't remember."

He looked miserably at the angel, no, that wasn't right. Her name was Urutori.  
She had introduced herself and the woman who kept her eyes closed was called Shiryu.  
Strange names, but at least they had them to call their own.

He could see she was trying hard to help him, the sense of honest purpose was almost  
visibly radiating from the winged...Pokewoman. He didn't even know what that was supposed  
to mean aside from the woman part. The word itself was understandable, but the only visual  
association he could find for it was gibberish inside of his head.

They looked human, but they were not. Not quite. In some undefinable way, he could sense  
a difference between them and him. Like a color that shouldn't exist or an extra silent  
note in a familiar piece of music, it was just something that he knew was there.

"Well we need to be able to call you something other then 'you' or 'boy'."

Urutori tilted her head as she seemed to consider something.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

It was most unfortunate that the boy had amnesia. Especially the loss of his name.

Names were important. They were a Pokewoman's individuality, the unique identity that distinguished  
them apart from each other. To have no name was to be on the level of an animal, a dumb beast  
that merely existed.

She had tried to lighten his worried mood but she could see the concern in her eyes reflected in his own.

She would give him a name then.

Urutori thought back to her childhood, when her mother had told her stories at bedtime.

The stirring tales of Taro Kei and his Pokewomen companions wandering around dealing justice, the bittersweet  
love ballad of Satomori and Hild and even the misadventures of Seina the Unfortunate. Those days of yore when  
knowledge had been shared freely among Humans and Pokewomen and many miracles had graced the world.

But most of all she remembered her favorite story, one she had never tired of and begged her mother to tell her  
night after night until she knew the tale by heart. The Tragedy of Saito Melan and the Three Sisters.

_ 'Once upon a time, there had been a young man strong of heart and full of courage. He traveled to many strange  
and distant lands learning many wonderous things until one day he arrived at the home of three sisters.  
Upon seeing their beauty he was determined then and there to choose one of them as his bride. But wanting  
a wife who was as fair in her heart as she was beautiful, he decided to test them to see where their true nature lay._

The youngest sister who was proud of her strength he confronted in a challenge match and using what  
he had learned in his travels, defeated her completely. Enraged at her defeat, the youngest sister  
flew into a frenzy and tried to destroy him, for she was a proud and powerful Oni.

Saito fled from her and encountered the second sister, who he begged to shelter him from the wrath of the Oni.  
She agreed to do so but only if he would give her all that he possessed down to the clothes on his back.  
Having no other choice, he agreed to her terms and stripped himself naked before the middle sister's greedy eyes.  
The crafty Dark Queen hid Melan in a secret compartment and told her younger sister that the man had run away.

But the Oni was not convinced and summoned two servants to hunt down the human who had shamed her.  
The two servants offered many riches to the middle sister, who had never really intended to uphold her  
end of the bargain with Saito, until at length the Dark Queen was satisfied with the bribe and led the servants  
to where she had hidden the man.

But Saito had suspected this treachery and had already fled. With the two servants fast on his heels,  
the young man at last sought sanctuary with the eldest of the Three Sisters. The oldest of the sisters  
was as kind as she was fair and protected the young man from her youngest sister's servants who fled  
back to their mistress.

The Megami healed his wounds and nursed Saito back to health. But when the young man declared that  
he had chosen her to be his bride, she refused his offer. For while the Megami knew of kindness  
and compassion, she did not understand what it meant to love someone other then her sisters.  
Undaunted by this setback, Saito swore that he would show her what love was even if it cost him  
his life. But the other two sisters learned of this oath and grew angry, for they had been  
rejected by this man who had tricked them both into revealing the truth behind their beauty.

And so they laid a trap for him. Saito learned of a potion that could unlock any heart guarded  
by a great beast. He went to the beast's lair and after a long and terrible battle that shook  
apart a mountain, defeated the beast and seized the potion. But because of the wounds he had  
suffered during the battle, his journey back to the Megami's home was slow. The Oni sister  
and her minions attacked him, inflicting many more wounds as he fled from them in his determination  
to fulfill his promise to the eldest sister.

Seeking to slake his thirst, Saito drank from a stream on the way to the home of his beloved.  
But the Dark Queen had poisoned the water so that with each step Melan took towards the Megami's house,  
he slowly began to fade from world. With his breath no more then a sigh in the wind, Saito reached the door  
of his beloved and knocked on the door with the last of his strength before disappearing entirely,  
leaving behind only the potion on the ground and the Megami's name singing in the air.

The Megami drank the potion and realized at last that she had loved Saito all this time but not realized it.  
She searched for him everywhere but to no avail. For Saito was no longer in the world of men. And at last  
the other two sisters revealed to her what they had done to the man who had shown her love, For this was their  
final planned revenge on Saito, to take away the love he had given everything to bring to the Megami and turn it  
into darkness. For the two sisters knew of the love their older sister had for them and believed nothing  
could ever change the protection that gave them.

But they were wrong. Enraged for the first time ever against her younger siblings, the Megami used her power,  
the power that could not save Saito, to banish both her sisters to dark and lonely places until the end of time.  
Yet not even this was enough to cure the pain of lost love in the Megami's heart.

And so the Eldest Sister left her home and wandered the world, endlessly searching  
for the land where men could not follow, the place where her beloved Saito had gone.'

The feeling of that old story seemed to resonate with this lost child.

"Saito Melan. Will you accept that name for now?"

Not his true name, but not a false one either.

The boy nodded hesitantly.

_ "Saito...Melan."_

Odd that, the way he pronounced it the _"L"_ almost sounded like an _"R"_.

Shiryu entered the tent quietly.

"My lady, we must be on the move soon."

Urutori looked outside and gauged the sun's position in the sky.

"Yes, you're right. We don't want to be caught out in the forest tonight.  
I just hate having to leave the tent and the other things behind."

"It can't be helped, Urutori-sama. Speed will be of the essence."

"Very well then."

She turned back to the confused youth.

"Saito, we have to leave now."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

They kept to the older trees, going as high as the branches that would support their weight allowed.

Two figures supporting a third between them as they leaped with the kind of perfect coordination that  
came from long hours of practice. Urutori supported most of the boy's weight, using the anti-gravity  
field that normally enabled her fly to nullify most of the additional burden and help her conserve  
her stamina through the hours of travel. Shiryu provided some stabilization on the other side, but  
most of her attention was on their surroundings and her free hand was never far from the handle  
of her blade.

Saito bore up with this grueling means of transport without complaint, though his face was pale  
and he winced every time Shiryu put pressure on his injured shoulder. He understood that there  
was danger somewhere around them and he did not want to be a distraction at the wrong moment.

He was amazed by the pace they set. It seemed to steadily devour the miles without actually  
feeling like they were going very fast at all. They couldn't move in an exact straight line  
since they were staying above the forest floor, but even with the occasional detour and need  
to change direction every so often, Saito could tell they were moving steadily towards  
the north-west.

They stopped only for a brief meal on a large branch where the two Pokewomen shared dried meat  
and fish and some rude corn pones that had been baked in the ashes of the camp before they'd left.  
The three of them had drunk from the waterskins to wash the food down and a blushing Saito had  
taken care of a call to nature on the other side of the trunk. He'd wanted to die as the sound  
of his piss hitting the leaves below was so loud he knew they could hear it on the other side  
of the tree. They'd given him a shapeless dull brown robe to wear and after he'd finished emptying  
his bladder he hitched it up as best he could with a piece of hemp rope around his waist.

When he'd stepped back around the trunk he was glad that neither Pokewomen brought up the  
matter. Even though it did leave him feeling a little off balance, it was as if their sense  
of propriety wasn't concerned about something so mundane as hearing a guy take a leak.

Saito wasn't sure if he was grateful or annoyed.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The sun was red and low on the horizon when Shiryu abruptly froze.

Urutori's brief puzzled look vanished a moment later as she too noticed it.

The forest around them had gone completely silent.

The boy seemed to sense it as well as his body tensed up next to her.

They were all perched on a respectable oak, but one glance down told her  
that they were too close the ground for either Pokewoman's comfort.

And then the smell hit their noses like a granite boulder.

It was a foul greasy mixture of aging filth and decay, a scent that skipped right  
past the brain and went directly to kicking in the stomach with an iron-toed boot.

Dires.

The Onkami and the Ryutoshi had trained together for so long that short hand gestures  
and brief eye contact conveyed everything that needed to be said without wasting breath on words.

The priestess hefted the startled Saito in her arms like an oversized infant and leaped  
for a higher perch as her bodyguard softly eased the first few inches of her sword from  
its dark sheath and let her fingers gently grip the handle in expectation.

The thick undergrowth exploded as a huge dark shape sprang up after the retreating pair,  
moving so fast that it actually raced up the side of the oak tree as its claws found purchase  
through the bark and into the wood.

As it came level with Shiryu there was a brief glint of metal  
and suddenly the shape was falling in two pieces back to the ground.

Saito's eyes widened as he saw what had tried to catch them.

Like the nightmare from last night this was a beast that had never evolved in the natural world.  
He briefly glimpsed long jaws full of an impossible array of hundreds of razor sharp teeth,  
glowing red eyes and dark scales before head and body crashed seperately into the undergrowth.

Urutori deposited him higher up in the boughs and told him in a tone that brooked no argument  
to stay put. Then she took to the air again, her wings flapping silently as she hovered on high,  
her hands crackling with blue light as she assessed the growing pack that circled the tree that  
Shiryu was on.

It was a full pack, like a horror story right out of the Second Revenge War. The Ryutoshi  
must have only found the stragglers earlier because there were at least two dozen of them down there.

Her friend seemed to have also done the calculations as well and come to the same conclusion  
as the bodyguard swiftly abandoned her position for a higher one and drew her blade fully from the sheath.

A quick draw strike was only effective against the monsters if one could get a clean shot  
at the throat that was the unarmored chink between the bony head and the armored chest scales.

It was unlikely that the Ryutoshi would get any more openings like that, from here on out  
Shiryu knew that it was going to be a matter of brute strength and trying to hit whatever  
vulnerable opportunity presented itself without getting killed.

While she appreciated Urutori's aid, Shiryu also knew that most of the dirty work was going to fall on her.  
In addition to their incredible physical durability, Dires were notoriously resistant to magical attacks.

Unfortunately while her sword was deadly against most foes, it was not the first thing the Ryutoshi  
would have picked to fight what was essentially a group of ravenous biological tanks. She had other means  
at her disposal of course, but those needed time to prepare and she didn't think she was going to have  
much of that once the pack decided to attack in earnest.

But when they finally moved, it wasn't against her.

_ "Sukebe's balls!"_

They were going straight for Melan.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The first Dire hit the trunk like a battering ram, making the old forest giant shake violently  
as the young man clung desperately to the trembling branches he was on. He could see those blood  
red eyes looking up at him, the primal hunger in them made all the more worse by the accompanying  
awareness there that was more knowing then any simple animal should have been.

They wanted to devour him not just as simple prey but because he would know what that death would mean.

A bolt of lightning sizzled down and splashed harmlessly off of thick scales as Urutori tried to distract  
the beasts, but they would not be denied. Another two smashed against the tree, their claws gouging deep  
into the wood as they climbed up as high as they could go before gravity won the battle against their  
scrabbling momentum and forced them back down.

Saito started to slip as the continuous heavy blows shook the old oak, a twinge of pain  
lighting up in his wounded shoulder as he grabbed the mossy bark for dear life.

He was going to die.

**_ 'Then fight.'_**

It was a strange voice, almost an echo inside of his skull.

_ 'But I lost the knife!'_

The tree started to creak ominously as the main body of Dires attacked it with a single minded fury.

**_ 'Why do you need a knife? You have your own strength.'_**

He could distantly hear Shiryu's sword ringing against metal hard scales and the crash of talons  
smashing earth and vegetation. Urutori was crying out to him to move, but it seemed that her words  
were coming from a long way off. All the sounds of the outside world seemed to be slipping away from him  
as he stared down at those hungry snapping jaws and merciless crimson spheres.

_ 'But I need a weapon!'_

The terror ate into his belly like a blade slowly being pushed inside.

**_ 'Everything is a weapon in the hand of the one who understands.'_**

And then the sickening snap of wood below told him that he was out of time.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Urutori launched another Graviga spell at the mass of Dires, but they were murderously quick  
and even the ones she managed to hit were only temporarily slowed down by the crushing force.

Their bodies were too dense and their scaled hides were incredibly tough. Air and Lightning spells  
deflected off those dark shapes like water off of a duck's back. And they were just too fast to target  
with Holy, the strongest attack spell that she had and which was normally intended for an individual target.

As soon as she'd let go of Saito, she'd launched a signal flare spell into the air over them,  
but there was no telling if anyone would see it or how long it would take help to come.

She spared a moment to curse the long dead inhabitatants of Viridick. They had set out to design  
an army of creatures specifically for killing Pokewomen and more or less succeeded. What those  
foolish people hadn't anticipated was that all of their horrific creations had developed a taste  
for regular human flesh as well. The complete annihilation of the fortified city had been as much  
about containment as it had been of vengence.

She saw out of the corner of her eye that Shiryu was fending off a pair of hungry Dires who had managed  
to climb up into her range, the Ryutoshi abandoning her perch as a heavy blow took out the entire branch,  
her sword deflecting a swipe from those razor sharp claws.

But the majority of the pack was going straight for Melan like iron filings to a lodestone.

"Move Saito! Get out of there!!"

She redoubled her efforts to distract their attention away, trying to hit whatever looked vulnerable.

But she couldn't stop them.

They just kept on coming after him.

She flew towards him, shouting at the boy to hold on as the trunk started to tilt and sway.

He looked up, gave her a small wan smile and then let go of the branch.

** "NOOO!!"**

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

He was falling towards those hungry jaws.

The terror was smothering him, contricting his chest like bands of iron.

_ And then in the space of a single heartbeat, he let it all go._

Saito Melan did not lose.

** "YAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!"**

All of the kinetic force of his falling body focused on the heel of his outstretched foot.

The first Dire's dark snout crunched audibly under the impact as the teeth missed him by inches.  
It squealed like a stuck pig even as he springboarded in the fraction of a second that he was  
in contact with its putrid smelling flesh. From there he was on top of another beast's scaly head,  
noticing almost absently that this close he could see the oversized tusks like some nightmare  
of a wild boar. Jaws snapped all around him, so many that the air seemed to be a sea of yellowish  
triangular death. The smell was overpowering and the sounds were even worse.

Had he tried to even think of what he was doing he would have died then and there.

This ordeal had moved beyond rational thought or even simple instincts.

He ducked, dodged, weaved and spun as his center of gravity twirled like a kaledoscope.  
He dared not stay on any one monster for more then a single step, but neither could he separate  
from the pack without instantly being brought down by them. Blackscaled forms leapt at the tasty  
taunting flesh that bobbed in and out among them. More often then not, they hit another member  
of the pack instead. Rather then inflicting any injuries, this only seemed to drive them into  
a frothing rage.

It was sheer madness.

No hesitation. No second guessing. Just a single endless moment of now.

So why couldn't he stop smiling?

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Urutori nearly fell out of the sky from sheer shock.

There hadn't been terms invented yet to properly describe the insanity level of what she was seeing.

He was using a pack of Dires as stepping stones?!

The Onkami could barely get her mind around the very concept of it. The logical part of her insisted  
that it wasn't possible. It was like trying to dance in the middle of a tornado without being touched  
by the wind. It couldn't be done.

And yet, there he was.

She didn't dare attack the pack now or do anything that might disrupt the flow of his movements.

Urutori hovered, uncertain about what she could do to help him.

As long as he stayed on top of them he was safe, but there was no way for him to get out.

He had the Tigress by the tail and didn't dare let go.

_ And then he missed a step._

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

_ He was flowing on the fine edge between seconds._

But the simple robes he'd been given, sturdy and well made though they were,  
had been intended for someone taller and "fuller" in certain areas that  
the young man lacked. It trailed after his movements just a heartbeat behind.

_ Just far enough for a Dire's teeth to catch hold of one flapping piece._

The unexpected pull caught Melan off guard as the robe stretched under the strain and then tore away from him as he fell.

Saito's fingers grabbed desperately at the dense wiry hair on the Dire's side. It cut his hands  
as he gripped it with all his strength to stop from hitting the ground. The squeals and snarls  
were going wild all around him. He spun from one uncertain handhold to another as teeth snapped  
at his wildly shaking legs. He kicked out and caught a snout that gave him enough momentum as his foot  
bounced off of it to lift his legs up high enough to avoid the second beast that had been going for them.  
Even as it prepared to lunge again the monster that he'd been holding onto began to run and twist around,  
trying to shake its unwelcome passenger off while at the same time attempting to take a bite out of him.

The boy clung on for dear life as the world became a blur of dark bodies, hot stinking breath and  
always those hungry jaws a single heartbeat behind him. He made himself as hard a target to hit  
as he could, shifting and bending like a gymnast drunk on adrenaline. His hands felt like they were  
on fire as he rolled up and then hammerkicked a leaping Dire right where it would hurt the most,  
armor be damned! The ensuing roar of pure animal pain was music to his ears even as the Dire he was holding  
onto tried to scrape him off of it by running into a tangle of thick brush. Branches and thorns scratched  
and slapped against his battered naked form as he held on as best he could, dropping closer towards its belly  
as it slammed its sides against fallen tree trunks. Rotten wood exploded as the furious creature smashed  
straight through an old log, pale white grubs showering down on Melan's body like a nightmare of snow.

Grunts from his blind side alerted him to another threat. His unwilling ride was circling around, heading  
back towards where the main body of the pack was waiting. His arms were already aching from the strain  
of clinging to the beast, he wondered if perhaps he might as well let go now and take his chances.

Then the horns sounded. Their long rich notes rang throughout the woods like the challenge of some ancient beast.

Something whizzed through the air in front of the bouncing boy and suddenly he was tumbling to the ground  
as the Dire he had been clinging to stumbled and collapsed with a crash into the dead leaves and bracken of the forest floor.

More thin whistles sounded over his head as he lifted his dazed eyes up to see the yelping dark forms ahead of him  
go down with bright blue fletching sticking out of their eyes and noses. He rolled to avoid a collapsing body  
that hit where'd he'd just been, the dying monster still snapping and clawing at an enemy that was out of its reach.

Something summersaulted over him in a blur of white and brown and then the sounds of rapid gunfire opened up.

To Saito's complete disbelief, it was coming from a pair of oversized pistols that the spinning figure was holding  
in either hand even as it tumbled through the air. He couldn't even begin to understand how she could aim at anything  
like that but somehow she was hitting the snarling enemies on either side, sending out huge plumes of dark blood from each hit.

More arrows were coming from what seemed to be every direction now, accompanied by the occasional bark  
of what sounded like some kind of rifle. The only thing the astonished young man could do was stay down  
as squealing Dires attempted to circle around to face this new threat. The young woman with the dual pistols  
was rolling and diving at the edges of the pack, snapping off shots at a slightly slower pace but with lethal accuracy.  
The look of excitement on that lovely face sent a chill through Melan's body, had he had a similar expression  
on his own face when he'd dropped into what had seemed like certain death at the time?

Shiryu ran up to cover the newcomer's left flank, her sword so covered in blood that the metal of the blade itself  
seemed to be nothing but scarlet. The silent Pokewoman baited the closest Dire into lunging at her, sliding aside  
at the last moment as a spear flew out from the forest behind her to take the beast straight through its open jaws.  
It hit the ground with a crash, legs jerking in wild spasms as Shiryu finished it off with a two handed stab through  
a rolling red eye. More figures were appearing out of the undergrowth now, all of them distinctly female in appearance.  
As Saito looked up he saw dozens of slender figures perched on the branches above, loading from the quivers on their backs  
and firing their sturdy bows with experienced ease.

He wondered if he was dreaming.

A Dire leaped at him, vicious yellow froth bubbling from its mouth and its eyes filled with nothing but rage and hunger.

An slender arm stuck itself out of the tree next to him and batted the large creature away as if it was nothing more then a small ball.

As the rest of her stepped out from the trunk like it was just an open door, Saito's eyes widened.

Long olive green hair, fine cut features and a body so voluptuous that melons were the only thing he could think of.  
Her skin was an attractive shade of light green and he could certainly see a lot of it. If it wasn't for some strategically  
placed bits of greenery she would have been completely naked. Even with the skimpy foliage he could still see almost  
every detail and his face heated up as that realization fully settled in.

_ 'Amazons?'_

Now where had that thought come from?

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

They were here!

Urutori almost wept with relief at the sight of the village's strongest Pokewomen out in force.

There was Sei, using her heavy pistols to pick off stragglers from the main body of the pack.  
Behind her a fiercely glowing Shirakawa opened up with her signature Red Flamethrower attack  
to help drive the confused predators into an ever tightening circle while Vaya and the other  
elven archers barraged them from above.

Even with nearly half of the pack down, the survivors darted this way and that as they tried to escape  
from the trap closing in around them. They were incredibly tough, Dires, absorbing arrows by the score  
unless one managed to hit an eye with a clean shot that drove straight into brain. But there was no hole  
to break through, no weak point to exploit. Heavy spears and lances met any individual monster trying  
to break out, piercing through the tough hide and driving the wildly struggling creatures back  
into the killing circle. None of the hunters fought alone, they worked in teams of three so that  
any attack on the front would be instantly countered by the other two in support.

Even then, it still took a long time for the pack to die. They fought to the death, clawing and snapping  
at anything they could reach, sending over a dozen of the village's hunters down with badly bleeding wounds.  
Their companions pulled them back and filled the gaps, their faces grim with determination to protect the forest  
that they called home.

At last only three of the largest Dires remained and they rushed as one towards the side of the living net  
that seemed to have less of the death dealing prey that harried them so. Only a single small figure stood  
in the way of their escape. Mouths drooling green and yellow saliva, they charged forward with savage purpose.

**_ "Reigan."_**

The smell of burning meat filled the air.

"I'm getting too old for this."

"Elder!"

Genkai, Leader of the Forest Village, looked up to see young Urutori starting to descend for a landing.  
The old though still handsome Pokewoman looked from her to where Shiryu was wiping the gore from her blade  
and then to where a small group of the villagers were curiously inspecting the small figure that had been daft  
enough to try and take a ride on a Dire. She had a bad feeling about this, as if the world around her had suddenly  
become something like the village's watermill, with the movement of small gears bringing about a change  
for good or for ill with the inevitability of a river's flow.

She pulled out her pipe, filled and lit it as the priestess hurried over to her.

"Interesting times, indeed."

** -End Chapter 3**

-Bonus Features-

-University Grand Library Archives, Ankmorecunt-

** Pokedex Entry #000119**

Name: PsiDyke  
Aliases: Psidope, Widowbane

Classification: Psychic  
Elemental Affinity: None  
Lifespan: Unknown, estimated to be human average.  
Reproduction: No known cases. Theorized to be a pure parthogenesis Pokewomen species  
Habitat: Populated regions, Psidykes have never been found away from civilization  
Reported Encounter Rate: Rare to Uncommon in city and rural areas. No reported encounters in the wild.  
Diet: Omnivore. Most seem to have a taste for sweets.  
Libido: None observed. Possibly a side effect of their limited mental capacity.  
Strong vs: Psychic  
Resists: None  
Weak vs: Physical  
Evolves from: No recorded cases of an evolution to Psidyke.  
Capture Difficulty: None. But who'd want to capture a Psidyke anyway?

Strength: F -Weaker then standard adult human  
Agility: D- -Within range of a normal human  
Speed: F -Top speed is estimated at 2 miles an hour  
Durability: D- -Slightly more frail then a normal human  
Endurance: F -Tires twice as fast a normal healthy adult human  
Intelligence: C- -estimated to be the equivalent of a small child  
Hostility Rating: F -Harmless unless startled or frightened  
Distortion Field Strength: D+ -High likelyhood of deflecting small caliber firearms  
Armor Rating: F -No Physical Defense  
Psychic Ability: B+ -Empath, Mindblock Auto-defense, Confusion, Distress Call  
Overall threat Rating: D- -Mostly Harmless

Special Abilities:

-Confusion: The Psidyke's single known offensive psychic ability. Used only when this childish Pokewoman  
is startled or scared, this powerful omnidirectional attack scrambles the minds of all sentient creatures  
within a certain radius. In addition random telekinetic energy can cause objects and people to be lifted  
and flung around at random, possibly resulting in injuries.

-Empathy: Psidykes can sense the emotional state of other creatures around them as well as project their  
own emotions to let others know what they are feeling. They appear unable to control this ability most  
of the time.

-Mindblock Auto-Defense: Perhaps the only real oddity of these innocent creatures is a strong automatic  
mental defense against cursory scans by other psychics. This appears to be a completely instinctual reaction  
beyond the conscious control of the Pokewoman. Psychic Pokewomen, especially Type One's acquired in the wild,  
will refuse to do any deeper probes of a Psidyke up to and including disobeying a direct order even after  
Level 5 conditioning. Attempts to mindprobe Psidykes by Humans with Psychic bloodgifts results in the activation  
of the Psidyke's Distress Call Ability and always results in failure.

-Distress Call: In addition to their own natural childish innocence, this unusual ability is the main reason  
why all Pokewomen training manuals and schools strongly recommend leaving Psidykes alone and unmolested.  
While accidently spooking a Psidyke can result in an embarrassing or painful incident as a result of a Confusion  
attack, *deliberately* harming or attempting to harm a Psidyke can lead to a very painful death, often at the hands  
of one's own Pokewomen. This psychic ability acts as a beacon to all Pokewomen within several square miles who will  
immediately target the offender with hostile intent. Even should that person manage to escape from immediate danger,  
they are psychically "marked" and any Pokewomen they encounter in the future will have "a bad feeling" about them.

_** Notes:**_

_ First recorded in P.S. 24, the childish Psidyke is widely believed to be one of Sukebe's failed designs abandoned  
near the end of Sukebe's War. These innocent creatures sought refuge in the ruins of human civilization among the  
hodgepodge of human survivors that managed to survive outside of the Great Fortress-Cities during the fighting  
and subsequent rebuilding. Their cute appearance and innocent nature soon made them quickly accepted by many who  
otherwise distrusted Pokewomen in general. Although some prominent figures voiced suspicions of the Psidyke's nature,  
over the decades there has never been a single recorded attack by one of these gentle creatures._

Psidykes are named for their well known psychic abilities as well as their equally famous lack of attention to the male gender  
over the age of puberty. Ranging from four and a half to five and a half feet in height, these Pokewomen tend to be slender  
and normally petite breasted, though on rare occasions more developed Psidykes have been observed. Hair color runs the standard  
range of every possible shade, though black and reddish pink are the most common. The most easily recognizable feature  
of these females are the two small horns on found on the sides of their head protruding from swirled bone platforms on their skull.  
In the event that this features is concealed it is very easy to mistake these Pokewomen for normal humans as their physical capabilities  
are otherwise on par or weaker then a normal woman of the same size.

Temperamentally a typical Psidyke can be considered on par with that of a five year old child. Although it is possible through  
long and patient training to teach them simple phrases and tasks such as how to use a toilet, they never seem quite able  
to grasp more complex ideas and concepts. Some individuals have even mockingly compared them to cats, though this is of course  
a huge insult to the intelligence of the typical domesticated feline. Although they can be quick to throw a silly tantrum,  
these Pokewomen are equally easy to distract out of their huff with a sweet or shiny toy.

Shunned by any serious tamer, Psidykes are the very definition of useless when it comes to Pokebattles or Pokesex.  
Not only are they incapable of attacking other Pokewomen, virtually no other type of Pokewomen will try to harm a Psidyke  
in any way. Even the most violent Demoness will display a gentleness to this breed that is otherwise unheard of from Dark-Element types.  
No explanation has ever been found for this curious behavior, even Tamers who are very close to their Harem have been unable  
to ever learn the reason for this universal taboo. Further explorations into this matter has been hampered by numerous accidents  
and gruesome suicides in the field which have contributed to the perception of Psidyke research as being extremely "unlucky".

** Shiroshi Lao Mao and the Limptit Pirates  
_-See Also: Red Reign of Terror, Tail of OneHotPiece_**

Shiroshi Lao Mao (P.S. 217 - P.S. 342) is perhaps the most infamous and brutal Pirate of the Silver Age.  
Born during the First Revenge War to a small noble family in what would later become the Crescent League,  
Mao was legally registered as a Purebred Human Birth. Little is known about her early years until Shiroshi's  
enrollment to Lesba University in P.S. 233. Reportedly distant from her fellow students, the young woman was  
nevertheless considered a diva on campus and displayed an exceptionally strong grasp of Magical Lore and  
the concepts of advanced Pokewoman Training and Taming. She also displayed an unusual interest in Pre-Sukebe  
devices including banned Lost-tech which resulted in several official reprimands filed by League Officials.  
Despite this worrying stain on her record, Mao seemed destined for success in whichever field she would choose  
after graduation. However all of this came to an end in P.S. 235 when it was discovered that Shiroshi was  
the culprit responsible for at least twenty seven horrific murders in Whitewash City. When authorities attempted  
to arrest her it was discovered that at some point in time the once human Mao had undergone Threshold into a Weretigress  
which proceeded to kill all three officers and their Pokewomen partners before fleeing.

The rogue Pokewoman disappeared for several years after her flight, though there are dozens of unsolved murders and disappearances  
across Crescent and Blue League territory that are believed to have been her handiwork. The first official record of her reappearance  
was in P.S. 241 when her flagship,** Red Ragnarok**, attacked an ocean convoy traveling between Crescent and Red League, wiping  
out the naval escorts and destroying or capturing every cargo ship except for a single crippled survivor which managed to flee  
and arrived in the Red League several weeks after the stunning attack.

What followed over the next century would become known as the Red Reign of Terror as Mao forged the various scattered ocean  
pirate clans into a powerful empire on the high seas. Striking from hidden island bases, the Limptit pirates ravaged ocean trade  
between the Leagues as well as pillaging coastal villages and towns. Despite many battles, arrests and executions the number of  
Limptit pirates seemed to increase every year. Conservative estimates place the total number of ships lost to the Limptits during  
the Red Reign at over 10,000 and human casualties around 250,000 men, women and children. For decades it seemed that Mao's grip  
on the sea would remain unbroken and eventually challenge even the Leagues themselves.

But in P.S. 288, following the elimination of the Sons of Sukebe, ULC forces turned their full attention and resources on the pirate threat  
that was crippling interleague trade. This anti-pirate campaign climaxed in P.S. 342 with the location and destruction of Mao's primary  
island base after a six month siege by a combined strike force from Red, Blue, Crescent, Gold, Orange and the normally reclusive Edo League.  
Unconfirmed reports also mention that a large band of Laymores and the Legendary Pokewomen Teresa and Miya were involved in bringing down  
the island's hardened defenses. During the battle, the self-proclaimed "Pirate Queen" Mao was eventually captured by ULC marines along with  
most of her pirate subordinates that failed to escape during the assault. Following a speedy trial in the port city of Grandcock,  
Mao was publically beheaded in P.S. 342 in the main city square before a packed crowd of thousands. Her final words were,  
**"Death is merely another doorway. My treasured Onehotpiece shall be that door."**

Following Mao's execution and the destruction of most of the Limptit pirates the few remaining survivors fled across the world,  
eventually reforming the individual rival Pirate Clans that had existed prior to the Red Reign of Terror. The largest group that fled  
would later become the modern Kuja Pirates, one of the strongest factions in the Pirate Clans. Inter-clan warfare between the various factions  
ever since has prevented the Clans from ever forming a united threat against the United League Council and reduced the pirates to more of  
a civilized nuisance on the high seas with codes of behavior that have greatly reduced loss of precious human lives.

** -Chronicles of the Pokeleague, 9th Edition -EDITED DRAFT APPROVED BY THE UNITED LEAGUE COUNCIL-**


	9. Chapter 4: Oaths and Bonds

**No Turning Back  
A Pokewomen Universe Story  
by Shade**

Porn with Plot Warning.

Copyrighted character use warning.

Ignoring what a lot of other people wrote warning.

Warning about warning warning warning.

_"Never assume the obvious is true."  
-William Safire_

**-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-  
Chapter 4: Oaths and Bonds  
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-**

"The boy can not stay here."

Urutori tried to make sense of those words but found herself at a loss.

"I don't understand, Elder. What do you mean?"

Almost two months had passed since the battle. Even the worst of the wounded had long  
since healed and rejoined their grateful companions. Summer had come into its full glory  
and the forest's rich bounty was at its peak. For the village it was a time of joy  
and song as the Pokewomen hunted, fished, farmed and gathered in abundance.

And to add extra excitement to the summer's activities had been the presence of the newcomer among them.

"You know what he is."

A thin stream of pale smoke escaped from the bowl of her pipe as the well preserved  
pink haired Pokewoman regarded the visitor to her home with a critical eye. Urutori  
sipped her tea with a commendable calmness, not even a single feather out of control.

"He's only a child."

Genkai simply stared at the winged priestess. Surely the young Onkami couldn't be that naive, could she?

The old Pokewoman coughed and decided to humor Urutori for now.

"Be that as it may, he still possesses a penis. Most of the time at least."

The golden haired Onkami sprayed hot tea across the room before sputtering weakly, _**"Elder!"**_

Genkai gave her a withering look.

"There is no shame in stating the truth. Has anyone managed to figure it out yet?"

The blushing Onkami shook her head.

"No. Prolonged exposure to cold water seems to change him into a her, but nobody seems to be around whenever he changes back."

"Huh, even with that strange reaction to water he's undoubtedly the first real  
live male that most of the other villagers have ever seen. And that is the problem."

The Elder took a long puff from her pipe.

"What are you saying? You think he's some kind of threat to the village?"

"In his own way. He may not mean to be one, but you've studied the histories. You know what men have wrought."

Urutori still looked defiant.

"He has done no harm in the time he was been among us. He can not be blamed for what happened long before he was born."

"True enough. But this is not the place for him. He needs to be returned to his own kind."

"And where would that be?"

"Far to the north, beyond the Great Mountains, there is a great human city. The peddlers come from there with their  
useful little things and take back the furs and medicines we trade them. If as you say, he wishes to find himself,  
that would be as good a place as any to start from."

The younger Pokewoman's wings flapped in agitation.

"There is something you are not telling me, Elder."

Genkai's unblinking gaze never left her face.

"Do you remember Veridandi's Chant?"

Nonplussed by this sudden change of topic, Urutori responded automatically.

"Of course. Every Pokewoman in the village has learned it by heart. It is part of the Rites."

"Yes. Now tell me, what do they mean?"

The winged young woman opened her mouth and then after a moment closed it again as her mind raced.

"You can't believe..."

"He came to you near the Forbidden Grounds without any memory of who he was or where he came from."

"But..."

"Free of true. Free of false."

Urutori said nothing.

"And his gender seems to exist solely at Water's whim."

The younger Pokewoman closed her eyes.

"What will you do then," she asked softly.

"Well first you need to unseal that which is within the temple."

Urutori's eyes shot open.

This time there was a kinder look on Genkai's face.

"Oh don't look so surprised. I don't intend to send the boy out there completely unprepared or unprotected."

The Onkami had the grace to blush. And the wisdom not to lie to the Village Leader.

"It's well past time that you and some of the younger villagers learned something about the outside world too."

_**"Elder!"**_

This time gratitude rather then embarrassment filled her voice.

"None of that. I believe you have a temple you need to visit," said Genkai in a gruff tone.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The noon sun was merciless overhead without a single cloud to deflect its overpowering golden wrath.  
It made Saito glad that he was in the shade of a thick willow as he watched the rows of fishing poles  
mounted on the river's bank. It wasn't a particularly demanding task that he'd been assigned, all he had  
to do was listen for the sound of the bells attached to the lines indicating it was time to reel in a  
fat fish that would go into the large covered basket half submerged in the shallow water near the bank  
which kept the catches cool.

Of course the village had other ways to harvest the water's bounty, but this one gave their guest  
something to do that at least made him feel he was contributing in some small way. And more importantly  
it put a little distance between him and those who worked in the village and the woods. The glances  
and looks directed at him had not lessened much since his introduction at the Summer Feast.

The young man licked his lips at the memory. There had been whole roasted deer, wild boar hams,  
baked potatoes and other savory tubers, smoked fish, salted nuts cooked over hot rocks and other  
things he didn't know the names of but had tasted delicious. The only thing he hadn't partaken  
of had been the mushroom dishes. For some reason the sight of them gave him a queasy feeling in his  
stomach and he'd avoided them as a result. It was odd, he was certain that he'd eaten them before  
but even thinking of eating them now made his body clench up.

"Well now, you certainly have a sour face for such a fine day."

To his credit, Melan hardly flinched at all at the wry voice coming from directly over his head.

"Hello Sei."

He looked up into a pair of twinkling hazel eyes not more then three inches from his head. The busty  
dark haired Room Raider was hanging upside down from a thin line attached to one of the willow's thicker branches.  
Once again Saito was reminded of the difference between Pokewomen and human women as he looked at her.  
A normal woman would have been growing red faced staying in such an unnatural position as a result of  
a circulatory system designed to handle gravity from only one direction. To say nothing of the fact that  
breasts of that magnitude should by all rights have been hanging around her shoulders instead of remaining  
in model perfect position where they were under that white cotton shirt she was wearing.

"Enjoying the view?"

He didn't rise to the bait. It hadn't taken him long to realize that Sei was a natural tease who enjoyed  
getting a reaction out of him whenever the opportunity presented itself. He took a step back as she flipped  
off of her line and touched down right in front of him, her dark boots digging into the soft gravel of the bank.

Her long braided ponytail whipped through the air as she unexpectedly spun like a startled cat and pointed an accusing finger.

"Stop hiding and get out here!"

At first there was only silence from the surroundings. And then where Saito would have sworn was only  
water and brush a minute ago, almost half a dozen Pokewomen with various sheepish expressions on their faces  
were suddenly standing there.

Sei pursed her full glossy lips in annoyance as she brushed an errant strand of silky brown hair back behind her ear.  
So much for trying to spend some time alone with their unusual guest. She regarded the newcomers with a flat stare  
that only Shirakawa and Kisaragi didn't turn away from. Of course in Kisaragi's case, the big-titted aqua colored Naiad  
was normally so absentminded that she probably didn't even notice the way the Raider was glaring at her.

Shirakawa was a different story, hell she was an entirely different volume from the ditzy Kisaragi. Cool and composed,  
the golden haired Bunnygirl brazenly met the challenge in her eyes directly. The air seemed to literally sizzle  
between the two Pokewomen as their stares locked in a silent battle of wills as the two of them clashed for psychic  
dominance over the other. But the Room Raider was not going to put up with an upstart like Shirakawa trying  
to one up her in front of Saito today. At length, the other female bowed her head and broke eye contact, the change  
in her stance indicating that it was Sei's victory.

The human male watched the confrontation uneasily. His understanding of the social dynamics of the village  
was limited, but what he did grasp was that there was an almost constant undercurrent of social ranking  
being determined between various individuals that rather reminded him of social animals like wolves or horses.  
Everyone obeyed the short matron called Genkai, but below her was a complex web of subtle hierarchies  
that were prone to change from things as obvious as the type of activity being performed to, as far  
as Melan could determine, the size of their respective chests.

He'd noticed Shirakawa's increased aggressiveness toward Sei for several days now and felt in some indefinable way  
that he was somehow to blame for it. Like Sei she looked practically human, save for the second pair of long white  
bunny ears that sprouted from the top of her head and a fluffy bunny tail that wiggled just over her rear cheeks.  
He had only seen her other form once when she'd been sparring against another one of the villagers in a supervised  
ring. It had been an educational experience. Someone who looked that cute should not have been capable of dishing out  
that level of punishment and he'd seen her in an entirely new light afterwards. She was also one of the younger Pokewomen  
in the village that as far as Saito could determine, seemed to come in only three types; teens, young women  
and fully mature adults that could be anything from thirty to three hundred for all that he could tell.

There were no young children around and no babies cried here. Even as wispy as his own personal memories might be,  
he knew that this was very strange. Children were loud and annoying and always running around, but that's what they  
were supposed to be. Their absence seemed to shout out at him from the background whenever he was in the village proper.

His thoughts were interrupted by Kisaragi pulling him into a hug. Given the noticeable difference in height  
between him and the Naiad, this meant Saito's face was buried between two cool wet mountains of blue capped by  
crests of darker blue.

_**"Blub!"**_

With an almost audible growl, Sei grabbed the floundering boy by the back of his damp shirt and yanked him out  
of the giggling Kisaragi's grasp.

"Will you stop doing that!"

_"But it tickles when he does that!"_

The young man hastily wiped the excess moisture from his face and mask. While it wasn't really cold and tasted too sweet  
to be considered normal water, nevertheless it still triggered unpleasant memories and made him instinctively cross  
his legs slightly as if he could already feel his dick disappearing.

To his undisguised relief, the developing argument was cut short by the sound of Sopoku calling them all for the noon meal.  
Before any of them had a chance to stop him he grabbed the reed basket holding his morning's catch out of the water  
and hefted it up in front of him as he raced towards the village.

There was a long pause as the assorted Pokewomen stared at the rapidly dwindling figure in the distance.

Then they yelled at each other simultaneously, "This is all _**YOUR**_ fault!"

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Urutori moved gracefully through the silent stone temple. Pale balls of soft blue magelight illuminated the hallway from above,  
spells that had been so carefully anchored that they needed only the simplest of rituals to be maintained even hundreds of years  
after they had been cast.

The polished stone tiles under her feet were cool and dry, each square perfectly cut and set so precisely that there  
was no need for mortar to hold them together. Even the air that circulated through this place seemed to smell  
of the weight of years that infused this place. This was one of the Mother's oldest temples, a far different place  
from the simple shrine that she called home. Members of the village helped to maintain the place and Urutori herself  
helped to renew the old spells that protected these grounds but nobody would dream of actually dwelling within here.

This was a place for words, not people. The elegant pictographs ran along the walls and ceiling, a flowing river  
of interconnected scenes that not even Genkai remembered the full meaning of anymore. Much had been lost during  
the Third War, but the Pokewomen who lived in the village still remembered the duty that was theirs to maintain.

The Onkami entered a room that was similar to dozens of others there. The only difference was that in this one, a shimmering green dome  
of light filled the center of this particular room. It was a very old spell, the runes were cut deep into the rock itself.

She knew that what lay within it was what Genkai had wanted her to retrieve.

One hand came up to contact the barrier. It did not yield to her touch but remained impervious.

It was waiting for the key to unlock it. And here and now, she knew what that key was.

_**"This is for the man who has come among us."**_

The light dissolved away in a shower of fluorescent sparks, leaving behind a square black case resting on the center of the floor.

The priestess touched it gingerly, her stomach tight with tension as she studied its artificial exterior.  
The stasis spell had protected it as if no time had passed within there at all even though centuries  
had gone by since it had been entrusted to their care. A relic from when humans had last passed  
through these woods.

She looked down at the gold circle with the arrow sticking proudly away from it which rested within  
a circle of nine silver stars over nine red and blue stripes.

The symbol of the Pokeleague.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Sopoku clucked her tongue and shook her head as she watched the boy eat. His manners had certainly improved  
from when he'd first arrived, but that wasn't saying much. Her long furred ears twitched as the blonde Pokewoman  
saw him devour an entire loaf of brown bread slathered with herb butter before he moved on to the thick meat stew  
in the bowl in front of him. His hands were a blur of activity that even her eyes had trouble following as he filled  
and emptied the dishes again and again.

With a loud bang she smacked the wooden table with the ladle in her hand.

"Slow down."

The masked face looked up at her with a frightened expression in his eyes that almost made her regret admonishing him.

Sopoku's talents as a sensitive were limited in nature compared to the healers, but even she could dimly feel  
that there were old wounds within their guest's mind. Their cautious psychic probes had found nothing except fog  
and shadows in his head, a mystery that made them even more sympathetic to his plight. Whatever had happened to him  
before he'd come here, it had been very bad.

She nodded with approval at his meal took on a more dignified pace.

"Better."

The smile on his face in response to her praise was fleeting, but she still counted it as a sign of improvement.

Now if only the younger villagers would stop trying to monopolize him like some kind of new toy,  
it would make her duties so much easier.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Sei poked at her food distractedly as her gaze kept sliding back along the benches to where Saito sat and ate.

She would have preferred to have been sitting right next to him but the presence of Sopoku discouraged any attempts  
to approach the young human as the normally docile caretaker was a holy terror when it came to disturbances  
in her domestic domains. Not even the most outspoken Brassy would dare to cross her when it came to the sanctity  
of the dining area.

It just wasn't fair. She could feel herself being drawn to Melan but every time she tried to get close somebody else  
would always interfere at the worst possible moment. Sei knew that she had the most in common with him, her fascination  
with the unknown frontiers beyond the forest had always set her apart from her peers in the village who were mostly content  
where they were. But she had seen the look in Saito's eyes once or twice when he wasn't aware she was watching him,  
the hunger for answers to the mysteries that surrounded him. Information that she knew he would not find here.

And when he went, he would need companions to help and protect him.

Now if she could only make _***him***_ realize that!

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

From the opposite side of the dining area Shirakawa alternated between glaring daggers at the arrogant Room Raider  
and carefully studying the features of the human they called Saito Melan. There was something in his unique scent  
that sent pleasant shivers down her spine. He smelled so different from the villagers that she could have identified  
him in the dark with just her nose alone. A hint of salt and rich earth mingled with something else that the Bunnygirl  
couldn't describe that seemed to trigger odd reactions within the more primal parts of the mind.

She felt restless. It was that damn Sei's fault, always trying to take the spotlight. Shirakawa resented how  
the older Pokewoman had overshadowed her at every turn since they had been children, even today's challenge  
had been ruthlessly quashed by the Raider's stronger battle spirit. Quite aside from her own personal interest  
in seeing the human remain in the village she was eager to take away something that the other Pokewoman obviously wanted.

The trick of course was figuring out how to do that without letting Sei realize what was going on.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Melan fought his body's urge to fidget as he stood waiting for the village's leader, Genkai, to address him.

As soon as he'd finished eating he'd been told by Sopoku to go to the old Pokewoman's hut while several villagers  
without any pressing work at the moment had trailed behind after him, their curiosity aroused by this unexpected  
summons. While they milled around outside of the small building of earth and wood he sat on one of the soft plump  
woven cushions inside. Saito's legs were tucked underneath him in a sitting position that his body seemed to recognize  
but still felt very uncomfortable as he tried his best to keep his feet from falling asleep.

The way that the well preserved matriarch studied him with an intensity that was almost physically tangible was unnerving.

It felt like she was peering into his soul.

"Have you enjoyed your time here with us?"

The sudden question took him completely by surprise.

_"Um-I-uh-yes? I think so?"_

He wasn't sure how else to respond. It was not a lie, even with the unusual aggressiveness of some of the villagers  
the weeks he had spent here had been the best he'd ever experienced. But it was also true that he couldn't remember  
anything of where he'd been before coming here so he really had nothing to compare it to.

He looked to Urutori, sitting besides the elder, for support. Her familiar presence was comforting in the dim room.  
Sputtering bee's wax candles cast dancing shadows on the walls for the windows had been shuttered and the door closed,  
leaving only the small little flames to cast any illumination within.

_**"Good."**_

That single word seemed to stifle all other sounds in the hut.

He watched as she sucked in a pipe full of smoke and let it puff out in a thin even stream of pale white smoke  
that seemed to twist and curve in the air of its own accord to form strange patterns and shapes that seemed  
to stick themselves into the back of his eyelids when he blinked.

The smell of the smoke was bittersweet and somehow reminded him of old wooden temples and worn stone statues.

Absentmindedly he touched the mask on his face. It was cool and hard against his fingers and joined against the skin  
so perfectly that it literally was a part of his face. He'd learned to ignore its presence for the most part  
once he'd accepted that there was no way to remove it, but when he was nervous or upset it seemed to throb against him.

He wasn't sure how much time passed as the silence stretched on, broken only by the old Pokewoman blowing the smoke  
from her pipe in the candle lit room. His senses seemed to be going hazy, a strange kind of calm had fallen over him  
as he looked into the unblinking eyes of the Elder while smoke and shadows danced in the corners of his vision.

_**"What do you see?"**_

The question seemed to come from all around him, a vibration in the air that thrummed through his body like tuning fork.

Translucent images flickered and formed in the air between their locked gazes, he could not turn away  
as the question pounded through his heart, racing through the channels of blood pumping through his body.  
Her dark brown eyes seemed to glow with an inner light that sucked his vision into them.

He saw things he could not yet place words to. The ghost of a mountain crested in snow, Lines and circles  
that joined and broke apart in a spiral dance up a line of long curling stairs. Red and Blue, always together,  
never alone, never apart. And a word formed on his lips.

"Ragnarok."

His voice sent the smoke flying apart, shattering the strange atmosphere that the cabin had slipped into.

Genkai blinked once, then twice. But otherwise her features remained completely impassive.

_"I see," she said at last._

Urutori gave the old Pokewoman a questioning look that was tinged with concern but the elder didn't seem to notice.

Instead she lifted her gnarled walking stick and pointed towards the back of the small room where a strange black metallic case  
rested against the wall. Among all of the carved and carefully crafted contents of the room, this artificial object stood out  
as something alien and out of place in the village.

"We have been holding it in trust for a very long time. Now, we give it to you."

Saito could feel her eyes on his back even as he knelt down to examine the case.

It seemed to have no handle or lock, only an almost invisible thin line running around the sides to indicate that it could  
be opened at all. There was a strange symbol on the top made of gold, silver, red and blue. He did not recognize it  
and its image brought no stray wisps of memory to his mind so he doubted he had ever seen it before. Slowly, almost hesitantly,  
he rested his right hand on top of the strange design of stars and stripes.

The metal was unusually cold against his skin. Then a sensation of sudden warmth caused him to withdraw his hand in surprise.

Where he had touched the case the metal now glowed a faint blue outline that was a perfect replica of the lines of his palm.  
Even as he watched, the glow spread in a thin circular wave that flowed across the surface , illuminating tiny lines and squares  
that had not been visible before. With a hiss of escaping air the top of the case slid open to reveal its contents.

"What in the world?"

He stared. Nestled in black foam padding were twelve blue spheres, each of them perfectly identical in design. Three thin white  
lines at geometrically precise angles curved around the unadorned blue. The only other outstanding feature was what looked like  
a round wide white button in the middle facing upwards and three simple colored light displays of green, yellow and red.  
At the moment, only the green light was on, a small eerie glow in the candle lit room. He heard sharp indrawn breaths from behind  
him and turned to see both Genkai and Urutori cautiously watching the innocent looking spheres as if they would explode at any moment.

"Leave those alone for now. You do not need them yet."

He blinked with surprise but decided to save his questions for later. Despite the elder's control  
he had detected a slight strain in her voice and it both puzzled and worried him.

The other device, for he could think of no other description for it, looked to him like someone had shrunken  
a television screen down to the size of his two hands side by side on top of a calculator keypad with more buttons  
then he was comfortable counting and then done something horribly obscene to it with some kind of dark metal fishing rod.

"A Pokedex. I haven't seen one of those in a long time."

Saito blinked in surprise at Genkai's words.

"A what?"

She chuckled softly at the confusion in his voice.

"Pick it up. You'll see."

Gingerly he reached out and grasped the metal rod to lift it out of the case. To his surprise he found that it was  
surprisingly light despite its appearance and tiny grooves lined with a softer almost rubbery material gave him  
a good grip on the item. Something sharp briefly pinched the palm of his hand gripping the device and he almost dropped  
it in surprise.

"Ouch!"

He nearly dropped it again as the screen flashed into blinking life.

**"Registering Owner. Please Insert Name Here."**

Saito stared as the pleasant female voice coming out of the blank blue lit screen.

"Insert name here," he repeated in a mystified voice.

**"Confirm."**

"Confirm?"

The screen flashed green and then blue again.

**"Registration Complete. Loading Dee Dee program."**

He stared in hopeless confusion at the Pokedex. What was a Dee Dee?

_**"Congratulations, Insert Name Here, for being the registered owner of the Lavos Enterprises  
Mark VII Pokewoman Observation, Analysis, Reference and Index System. This unit's operational  
software is Dee Dee Version 3.14159, copyright MacroHard P.S. 237. Big and Hard, Macrohard!"**_

Genkai seemed to suffer a brief fit of coughing before finally speaking.

"That can also be put aside for later study."

He placed the strange device on the ground with a quiet sigh of relief. There was something  
unnerving about the Pokedex's speech pattern, though he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Further investigation of the case produced a black cross between a belt and a harness that fit  
surprisingly well on his frame when he tried it on. It seemed to have more pockets and places  
to put things then it appeared to, when he picked up the Pokedex again there seemed to be  
a holster just the right size for it at his hip that he wasn't quite sure had been there earlier.

There was also a dark blue traveling backpack and a small pouch of coins of a type he'd never seen before.  
The golden discs were stamped with symbols that looked foreign to him, though he could identify a few letters  
here and there in English. The words they formed though, were not.

_'Amor vincit omnia.' _

He wondered what it meant.

Reaching into a second pouch he produced a handful of sparkling stones, each about the size of a small egg.  
They were beautiful, each one a brilliant singular color that seemed to glow with an inner light.

He heard Urutori's gasp of surprise from behind him when she saw them.

"Evolution Gems," the Priestess whispered in awe. She had never seen stones of such high quality before.

It was obvious that the young man had not even an inkling of the value he held in his hands.  
Her respect deepened for the planning of the long dead humans who had entrusted the case to the Temple.  
While the currency they had left inside might no longer be worth anything, gems would always  
be a universally accepted trade item among Pokewomen.

Saito poured the stones back into the cloth bag and tossed it lightly beside the pouch of coins on the ground.

Finally he pulled out out of the case the last of its contents, dozens of brightly colored plastic packages  
that the two Pokewoman in the room regarded with identical looks of disgusted horror.

"Red-E-Meals."

The large type labels proclaimed them as the ultimate traveling food. And this was certainly true since  
just the sight of an untouched Red-E-meal was more then enough to motivate hungry travelers to find  
something else to eat. It was said that they had a shelf life on the order of a radioactive half-life,  
and of even greater significance that the isotope in question didn't matter.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The mood among the gathered villagers was tense with excitement.

The evening meal had been finished and the dishes and pots scrubbed and cleaned. Normally they would have either gone  
to their beds in anticipation of an early rise tomorrow or gone off to work on their own projects in their own dwellings.  
Some also preferred to retreat in privacy with their lovers and spend time together. But Genkai's order had been absolute  
and so it was that the entire population of the village and its surrounding forest had gathered into the center where they waited  
and whispered among themselves with growing curiosity. Some sat on wooden seats and benches while others contented themselves with  
perches on roofs and branches and a few even planted themselves comfortably on the warm bare earth.

As the Elder finally appeared, her walking stick tapping a steady beat on the hard packed ground, the conversations ceased  
and the village grew eerily silent as all eyes focused on the solemn figure making its way steadily to the small boulder  
that served as both tool and platform in the heart of the clearing. Behind her came a silent Urutori but to their surprise  
they did not see Saito Melan. Pokewomen looked to their neighbors, the same silent question obvious on all of their faces.

Genkai's staff came down on the boulder once. The piercing note rang clearly through the village and into the woods.

"In the Mother's Name I greet you all, Kin of my Kin."

The ritual greeting alerted one and all to the seriousness of the occasion.

Sei felt her pulse quicken with growing excitment. Shirakawa pursed her lips unhappily,  
a tiny worm of concern forming in her belly. From where she leaned against a tree Shiryu's  
expression didn't change at all, though her closed eyes never left Urutori's face.

"A Son of Man has sheltered among us as our guest."

Voices rose in a low murmur around the village center.

"He has broken bread and salt with us."

Nods of agreement came here and there from among the listeners. He had been welcomed and treated  
as a guest and there were many who would not have minded him staying in the village as one of them.

"And now he requires our aid to find his way back among his own kind."

For an instant there absolute silence as the words sank in.

Then it seemed as if every voice erupted at once.

Leave the Forest?! It was almost unthinkable, travel beyond their lands  
when everything needed was so near? Why could he not just stay with them?!

Genkai waited until the noise had died down before she continued.

"To North, far beyond the Hunting Plains and the Harpy Ranges, there is a city of humans."

This time she was forced to bang her staff down twice on the boulder before the hubbub ceased.

"This is not a decision made lightly. Beyond our borders are many dangers and hardships,  
but if he is to find his place in the Mother's eyes then this is the only path open before him."

"And he will not go alone," said Urutori in a clear voice as she suddenly stepped forward.

Absolute silence fell over the clearing as every pair of eyes focused on the winged priestess.

_**"By She Who Protects All, do you pledge yourself to watch and guide Saito Melan on his journey no matter where it takes him?"**_

The sharp hiss came from a dozen throats at the Elder's solemn words.

"By Her Will, I pledge my life to this."

No sooner had the words left the fair haired Pokewoman's lips then Shiryu's cool voice rang through the stunned crowd.

"Where my lady goes, I shall follow."

Heads whipped around again as a third voice spoke out.

"I will go with them as well."

Sei's mouth remained open, the Room Raider's words unspoken as she stared  
in absolute shock at the Pokewoman who had beaten her to the punch.

Clearbrook?! Why had one of the most senior and reclusive of the Forest Elves volunteered for this?!

The Chestnut haired Pokewoman couldn't believe what her eyes and ears were telling her.  
Even the other Elves there were looking bewildered at the slender silver eyed figure,  
her long hair shimmering like the soft glow of the full moon.

"...Me...too."

As the Raider struggled to recover her voice yet another Pokewoman spoke the words she'd been trying to say.

This time the gasps and stares were widespread. Ren, a normally silent buxom redhead  
and one of the strongest physical Pokewomen in the area, had her hand raised in the air.

"I, I'm coming too!"

This time Sei managed to get the words out. She could feel Shirakawa glaring at her with a mixture  
of shock and disbelief in her eyes. While they were bitter rivals, the two Pokewomen's emnity towards  
each other had gone on for so long that in a strange way it made them closer then friends.

But for the Bunnygirl the Forest has always been her home. Her friends and family were there and she fit in  
with everyone else. Sei, who had always been a loner by nature, did not. She had always been the restless one,  
wanting to know what else there was besides the village and their territory. Time and again she had been  
tempted to go off with the occasional trader that came to visit and only her loose ties to those in the village  
had held her back on each occasion. But now her time had come at last.

The Elder's staff striking the boulder once more cut through all the sounds and musings like an invisible scythe.

"Very well. Five will go and no more. May the Mother watch over you all."

As she strode away from the gathering the noise resumed as dozens of clusters of Pokewomen  
began to talk and argue among themselves over the night's unexpected turn of events.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

_That night he dreamed of a valley shrouded in mist and of yellow bamboo poles standing in innocent pools of water._

_Someone faced him there, but the mist and shadows hid the figure's features._

_It spoke to him but he could not hear its words as the wind seemed to steal them away. _

_But he could understand the hand that beckoned mockingly towards him._

_Saito leaped upwards to balance on a pole of his own._

_And so they fought._

_Crossing from one swaying point to another they met in midair, their kicks countering each other in almost perfect harmony._

_It was not a battle he seemed able to win. Yet he could not afford to lose._

_So Saito slept and continued to dream. _

**-End Chapter 4**

**-Bonus Features-**

**Ask Professor Goa Tse!**

Dear Professor, is it true that Feline-type Pokewomen kill and eat Rodent-type & Bird-type Pokewomen?

_Absolutely Not. Despite the popularity of this urban myth in modern culture, normal Pokewomen do not  
prey upon each other. Indeed, even suggesting this in the presence of any Pokewoman will result  
in a long and painful stay with a highly unsympathetic Nurse Joy under the best of circumstances.  
Consuming the flesh of other Pokewomen is considered the ultimate taboo among all Pokewomen.  
While Feline-types possess the instinctual urge to stalk and pounce on their smaller cousins,  
intended victims have far more to fear from the dominating and lusty nature of the Cat then their stomach.  
Though there is a grain of truth in that several types of Dark-Evolutions are capable of feeding on Pokewomen  
and that the most dangerous of these, including the Black Widow and the Scarrecunt, prefer to prey on Pokewomen  
over most other normal prey. _

Dear Professor, is it true that omelets made of Slutwing eggs are a rare delicacy over in the Blue League?

_This is yet another old wive's tale that refuses to die. Let me reiterate to all my readers that under  
no circumstances should *any* flesh, blood, eggs or other unidentifiable secretions from a Pokewoman  
ever be consumed. With the exception of milk, saliva and vaginal secretions, the high concentration  
of T-virus in Pokewoman render their flesh and blood highly toxic to most creatures. In addition  
Slutwing "eggs" are actually not eggs at all. Like most Avian Pokewoman, Slutwings excrete waste  
into highly explosive "eggs" that they can store in their anal canal for use in combat. In the absence  
of a target to use these bombs on, Slutwings will dispose of their eggs in an out of the way place  
where the elements can break down the components of the egg into safer non-toxic materials._

Dear Professor, recently my Level 40 Foxx battled a Level 25 Dark Magician Girl and was completely defeated.  
How is this possible? Aren't lower level Pokewomen supposed to be weaker and easier to capture compared to higher leveled ones?

_It seems that every month this same kind of question pops up. A Pokedex measures a Pokewoman's Aura and assigns it a level  
based on the detected energy output. While this can serve as a general indicator of how strong a particular Pokewoman may be,  
Tamers should never rely solely on a Pokewoman's given level to determine their capabilities. Certain types have demonstrated  
the ability to mask the true strength of their Aura, some particularly skilled individuals have been so proficient that they were  
even able to avoid detection by a standard Pokedex. Additionally, experience is a key factor in any Pokebattle. Even though a Pokewoman  
may not be particularly powerful, if they have honed their abilities over the years against stronger opponents, then they will  
prove to be a much more formidable adversary then they might first appear to be. Always remember the first Rule of Pokewomen,  
"Looks can be deceiving!"_

**Pokedex Entry #000099**

**Name: Archeress  
Aliases: Pettanko, Delicious Flat Chest, Ironing Board, Waifu, Little Miss Badass, Love Hunter  
Classification: Warrior  
Elemental Affinity: None  
Lifespan: 140 years on average  
Reproduction: Sexual and Parthogenesis  
Habitat: Varies by Individual. Most seem to prefer rural & urban regions.  
Reported Encounter Rate: Abundant in Red, Blue and Green League Territories. Uncommon in Edo, Gold and Orange League Territories.  
Rare in Crescent and Indigo League Territories. Very Rare in Silvermoon League.  
Diet: Omnivore. Enjoys sweets and milk products. Allergic to Mustard.  
Libido: Average  
Strong vs: Flying, Poison  
Resists: Light (Low), Poison (High)  
Weak vs: Bug, Ghost  
Evolves from: None. Foundational Pokewoman.  
Evolves to: Amazonchan, Amazonlee, Amazonwu, BabeGunner, Dark Amazon (Requires Darkness Gem), Valkyrie (Requires Lightning Gem),  
Miko (Requires Spirit Gem), Witch, Princess (Requires Crown Jewel)  
Capture Difficulty: Easy to Moderate unless their chest size is mentioned. Then becomes Insanely Hard.**

Strength: C+ -Three times as strong as a normal adult human  
Agility: A -Incredibly Flexible and Nimble  
Speed: B+ -Can reach and sustain speeds of up to 45 miles per hour  
Durability: C -Significantly Tougher then a normal adult human  
Endurance: B -Capable of high intensity activity for up to 48 hours without food or rest.  
Intelligence: B- -Equivalent to Human Standard  
Hostility Rating: D+ (Normal) -Avoids confrontations most of the time, A (if breasts are mentioned) -Berserker Rampage  
Distortion Field Strength: B- (deflects most standard caliber ammunition)  
Armor Rating: C -Takes Normal Damage from Attacks  
Psychic Ability: D+ -Minor Empath, Danger Sense, Lock-on  
Overall Threat Rating: C+ -Moderate Caution advised when encountered

Special Abilities:

-Magic Arrow: The Signature Ability of the Archeress is the ability to create an arrow-shaped projectile out of pure Mana energy.  
These bolts can be fired without the need for a physical platform as the Archeress uses her arms to draw the bow of her mind.  
Magic Arrows pack a powerful punch that can Negate up to B class Armor and damage those who possess Physical Resistance/Immunity traits.  
With much practice, additional abilities can also be added to make this attack even more deadly. Common upgrades include Elemental  
Damage Affinity, Spread-Shot, Homing Missile, Rapid-Fire, Stunning/Paralysis and Overcharge.

-Lock-on: A Psychic targeting ability that gives this Pokewoman unparallelled accuracy even against the fastest and most distant of targets.  
Illusion, Decoy and other misdirection skills are rendered ineffective while Lock-on is in effect. However, this technique's narrow focus  
on a single person, vehicle or object at a time is a double edged sword that can leave the Pokewoman vulnerable to other enemies.

-Danger Sense: Like all Warrior Pokewoman, Archeress can sense deliberate attacks and hostile intent directed at them,  
giving them a combat reaction speed that often catches their opponents by surprise.

-Resist Poison: In addition to the normal Pokewoman immunity to normal toxins, the Archeress is naturally resistant  
to most chemical weapons employed by another Pokewoman. This has been attributed to the Pokewoman's original simplified  
design by Dr. Sukebe as a ranged infantry unit capable of deployment into even the most inhospitable combat conditions.

Notes:

One of the original breeds of Pokewomen created for Sukebe's War, the petite Archeress is one of the most common Pokewomen  
in the world today after Catgirls and Elfgirls. Deployed in battalion strength by many of the Pokewomen armies, they cut a  
devastating swath through human infantry, armor and low flying aircraft with their signature Magic Arrow attack and innate mastery  
of bows and firearms. When combined with Centauress or Pegaslut for additional mobility the paired units became the equivalent  
of a Light Armored Vehicle for the Pokewomen forces. Following the end of the Great War the Archeress were one of the first Pokewomen types  
to immigrate into human controlled areas where they were quickly accepted due to their relatively mild nature and unthreatening human appearance.

Archeress average five feet in height and are easily recognizable by their three trademark characteristics; their long hair arranged  
in two large curled twintails, slightly elongated ear pinna and complete lack of a bust. The second trait becomes especially noticeable  
with the average Archeress's preferred style of dress, a bright bare shoulder working dress with a dyed leather skirt. While the majority (77%)  
are blonde, brown (12%), black (6%), red (4%) and other (1%) hair colors have been recorded. Outside of cities and towns most will also carry  
a bow and quiver, crossbow or a pistol specially designed for use by Pokewomen. While they do not require these items to employ their abilities,  
it has been confirmed that by using these weapons as a focus an Archeress to expends much less energy on generating a Magic Arrow as opposed  
to creating one completely from scratch.

In terms of personality Archeress tend to be both polite and direct. Of all the Warrior types they are considered one of the least aggressive  
and will rarely initiate combat unless provoked in some fashion. Their single sore point and berserk button is their breasts. Archeress never  
develop beyond a B-cup with A and even AA sizes being the most commonly found. While other petite Pokewomen can often develop their bosom  
with aids such as Bloom powder-extract, such artificial methods do not work on this Poison-resistant Pokewoman. As a result of this the Archeress  
tends to regard most of the more well-developed Pokewoman types with barely curbed hostility, especially the more prominant Warrior Types.  
Many a foolish tamer has made the mistake of making fun of an Archeress, mistaking their mild behavior for weakness, only to learn too late  
where the nickname "Little Miss Badass" comes from. Once they're in an enraged state, even a battle loving Tigress would rather flee then face them.

If Archeress have a weakness then it is their extreme dislike and fear of Bug and Ghost Type Pokewomen. Even the common Buzzbreast sends shivers  
down their spine and just being close to a Spinnertit can cause most Archeress to faint before a battle even starts. Given the common usage of  
at least one Bug Type in most Tamer's harems, this has resulted in the low popularity of this Pokewomen among Tamers outside of a select few  
fetishists. Archeress also tend to react badly to spooky areas favored by most Ghost Types, viewing the specters as unnatural terrors.  
This antipathy is so great that they will often desert a harem at the first opportunity if a Ghost Type is added to it.

In combat an Archeress will always stick to their strengths, employing their speed and agility to pepper an opponent with ranged attacks  
while remaining out of melee range. They excel at taking out Flying Types as their Lock-on ability enables them to target difficult to hit spots  
no matter how fast the other Pokewoman might be. Even Dragon Types in Battle Mode are not immune to being knocked out of the air by sufficiently  
charged Magic Arrow Shots to the wings. If forced into Melee combat the Archeress will concentrate on evasion and normally attempt to reopen  
the range to allow them to resume their barrage. The sole exception to this pattern of attack is when they are in a Berserker state, where  
the furious Pokewoman will actually close to engage in brutal bash-fest that involves them channeling their Magic Arrow ability directly through  
their fists and feet into the target. This point-blank method of attack is so devastating that it has been known to drop more powerful Pokewomen  
in a single blow. However this technique also causes severe damage to an Archeress's limbs which is why it is never empoyed outside  
of an infuriated state where they simply don't care about the harm to their own bodies.

As a Foundational Pokewoman the Archeress is capable of evolving into many stronger and more popular types including the various Amazon Classes  
and the Babegunner. This is normally the reason that they are occasionally brought into a harem for, though most Tamers simply prefer to wait until  
after they've evolved before attempting to challenge the Pokewoman. Additionally the Archeress is one of the few known Pokewoman capable of evolving  
into the rare Valkyrie and the only one known to be capable of evolving into the very rare and highly prized Princess, though these evolutions both  
require additional materials that are nearly as rare as both types.


End file.
